COLUMBIA - A House subcommittee on Tuesday agreed on a free-pour enabling bill that is radically different from one awaiting action on the Senate floor.

The differences between the two make it likely it will take longer to work out a compromise, but the parties involved do not think it is too late for action this year.

"I think we're going to implement the minibottle law by the end of 2005," said Rep. Bill Cotty, R-Columbia. Cotty led the subcommittee that held hearings and worked on House bills to implement the change voters approved in November that ends the last minibottle requirement in the nation.

Cotty said he is confident the House and Senate differences will be worked out.

Tom Sponseller, president of the S.C. Hospitality Association, said it is getting late in the session for a major bill with major differences to pass, but he is hopeful.

"Both of them still have the floor debate," he said.

During those debates, changes could be made that could bring the bills closer together.

Two major differences separate the House and Senate plans.

The biggest is the way they make up the loss of the 25-cent tax on each minibottle.

The Senate, after first adopting the 5-percent cocktail tax that had been suggested and largely agreed upon five years ago, later changed the bill to a new tax of 56 cents on each liter to be paid by buyers in package stores and customers in bars.

The change to the liter tax was made by the Senate Finance Committee on grounds it will be easier for the state to collect the tax from the wholesalers, as is currently done, than to impose a new tax on cocktails.

The House subcommittee said the cocktail tax is fairer. Liquor stores and distillers are fighting the Senate's tax proposal.

"We really want the bars to pay that excise tax," said Suzie Riga, vice president of Green's Liquors.

The other major difference is that the House went along with the request from the four or five major wholesalers that they be allowed to sell and deliver supplies directly to bars, along with the 58 liquor stores that also are licensed to sell for on-premise use.

The Senate committee that worked on the bill said the wholesalers could undercut the liquor stores on prices and put them out of business. The Senate plan does not allow the wholesalers' request.

"Opening the market up is probably the best thing for all of us," said Rep. Chip Limehouse, R-Charleston.

Rep. Ken Kennedy, D-
Greeleyville, said he worried that liquor stores that sell to bars would be put out of business. He proposed that the stores have a three-year phase-out period with exclusive rights on minibottles, but other panel members would not agree.

Kennedy also wanted to require the manufacturers to offer their products to any of the wholesalers. Under the current system, each wholesaler carries only certain brands, and stores must deal with all of them to carry a full line of products.

"The big guys have a monopoly on the Jack Daniel's and Chivas Regal" and that drives up prices, Kennedy said. Other members of the subcommittee said they didn't think the state had the power to mandate how distillers market products.

The Senate committee also briefly discussed the same proposal and arrived at the same conclusion.

Another provision the House panel adopted that the Senate gave a thumbs-down was forbidding bars to buy 1.75-liter bottles. The Senate said distillers asked for that provision because that bottle size offers them the lowest profit margin.

Cotty's panel did not discuss the provision but approved it. Afterward, he would not say why bars should not be allowed to use the largest bottle.

The House measure probably will be discussed by the full Ways and Means Committee next week.

The Senate bill is stalled because of the objection of four members. A vote to force debate on it could come next week.