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Web posted Monday, August
9, 2004
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Herbkersman: Minibottles not gone yet
Bill
Herbkersman
Special to the Carolina
Morning News
Many of you have called the
office and gone to the Web site with questions
about the minibottle law. When is it going into
effect? Do big bottles replace the little ones, or
do they live side by side for awhile?
These
are all good questions and here are the
answers:
In the last session of the General
Assembly, the House and the Senate passed a joint
resolution to amend the South Carolina
Constitution. The amendment would eliminate the
detailed requirements for the regulation of
alcoholic liquors and beverages including the
provisions that on-premise establishments are
licensed to sell alcoholic liquors only in sealed
containers of two ounces or less
(minibottles).
The proposed amendment will
be decided by referendum as part of the general
election of Nov. 2. If the referendum is passed,
the General Assembly will create enabling
legislation that will define the particulars of
how, when or if minibottles will disappear, and
what regulations regarding "free-pour" will
replace the current regime.
Stay tuned for
further details.
Two weeks ago, I addressed
the At-Will Employment Act. This is the law passed
in the last session that provides that employee
handbooks, etc., are not to be construed as
contracts if they are properly
disclaimed.
Many of you called about
getting a copy of the disclaimer. If you will give
me a little time, I will have one at my office in
Bluffton. It's supposedly on the way as I write
this.
In the meantime, if you want to get
it off the Web, here's how: Go to
www.llr.state.sc.us; click on "Labor Program" and
scroll down to "Wages and Child Labor." There is a
copy of the disclaimer and how it is properly
used.
This is important stuff that
employers and business owners need to be up to
date on.
Also, I just got the new
unemployment figures from the Employment Security
Commission. In a nutshell, we in Beaufort County
are doing pretty well. Statewide, we have some
work to do.
In South Carolina, the
unemployment rate was up 0.3 percent from last
month to 6.6 percent. Compared to the national
rate of 5.6, which has held steady for the last
three months, we are not the worst in the nation
but far from the best.
Not surprisingly,
the leisure and hospitality sector led the way in
employment with around 3,500 new jobs across the
state. There were around 1,800 new jobs in
professional and business services, with trade,
transportation and utilities up almost
1,900.
This unfortunately was offset by
widespread layoffs, mostly in manufacturing.
Claims for unemployment insurance were up in June,
which probably had a lot to do with the end of the
school year.
Overall, except along the
coast, job growth was sluggish.
I know it's
small comfort when you're stuck in traffic out on
U.S. 278, but much of our traffic problem is folks
going to work in the morning and coming home in
the evening. We tend to take our robust local
economy for granted sometimes.
We might
look at visitors with out-of-state tags as just
another contributor to our collective
inconvenience. This not only is ungenerous but
also wrongheaded. Our prosperity has simply outrun
our roadways.
There are many parts of our
state where folks would gladly trade quiet roads
and empty streets for a little of our sometimes
inconvenient prosperity.
I'm here to help
preserve and expand our prosperity, as well as
help reduce the inconveniences that go along with
growth. Let me hear from you. There is a good
reason why it's called the House of
Representatives.
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