House Bill 5046 went into effect this past Friday, giving bars and restaurants with liquor licenses the option of allowing their customers to bring their own wine.
Beggar’s Banquet is now a participating restaurant in the new BYOB law, bartender Bart Carrigan said.
Restaurateurs who may fear a profit loss have the option to charge corkage fees.
These fees would allow participating restaurants to charge customers for bringing wine, to only allow certain types of wine or to opt out all together.
Beggar’s Banquet set a corkage fee of $25, Carrigan said.
“If (people) do go out and buy wine and bring it in, it’s a comparable price to the wine we’re actually selling,” he said. “On our special nights it’s a better deal to buy our wine.”
Communication senior Megan Frye was excited to hear about the bill ,but said a high corkage fee would deter her from participating.
It wouldn’t be worth it to pay more in fees than the actual cost of her wine, she said.
But if the corkage fees were lower, she said it would bring in significantly more business to the restaurants, especially in a college town.
The bill’s sponsor, State Rep. Jim Stamas, R-Midland, said the bill is a great option for restaurants and bars to have.
But he stressed that it’s not a requirement.
“Each restaurant and business owner has the opportunity to either take advantage of it or use their own business model,” Stamas said. “So it’s just one more tool, one more opportunity, but it’s not going to be for everybody.”
Stamas came across a BYOB restaurant for the first time while visiting Chicago.
He immediately wondered why restaurants in Michigan did not have that option, he said.
State Rep. Sam Singh, D-East Lansing, said he is unsure of how many restaurants in the area would actually seize the opportunity but that it provides another way for restaurants to attract customers.
Stamas said he also sees the bill as a chance for the state’s wine industry to grow.
“We’ve developed a very good wine industry so hopefully it also promotes the Michigan wines being brought in,” Stamas said.
