Omnibus liquor bill includes provision allowing 17-year-olds to serve alcohol in restaurants

A proposal that would allow 17-year-olds to serve liquor, to help restaurants facing worker shortages, has made it through the committee process.

Sponsored by Rep. Tim O'Driscoll (R-Sartell), HF2027 became the omnibus liquor bill Thursday with a delete-all amendment that added a dozen other alcohol-related bills.

The House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee approved the bill on a voice vote and sent it to the House Floor.

No public testimony was given, although testimony was provided on the individual bills when the committee heard them earlier this month.

The proposal to allow 17-year-olds has been modified to require them to be supervised by someone older than 17 when serving liquor.

O’Driscoll said he proposed the legislation after hearing from employers about their difficulty in hiring workers since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The bill would increase the limit from two cases to four cases per year for directly shipped wine from a winery to a Minnesota resident. The original bill called for 12 cases per year. The measure was passed by the House in 2020 and 2022 but failed to garner support in the Senate.

The omnibus liquor bill would also:

• permit a temporary license to a food truck for the on-sale of liquor at a private event the food truck is catering;
• allow Minneapolis to issue an additional license for a food hall and St. Louis Park to issue a license for a food hall in the West End shopping district;
• permit issuance of an on-sale strong beer and wine license for sales at the Taylor Center in Mankato;
• allow on-sale liquor licenses at the Science Museum of Minnesota and Union Depot for events;
• allow the issuance of licenses for the Dwan Golf Course in Bloomington, Chateau Theater in Rochester and Springfield Area Community Center;
• create an exemption for Lake of the Woods County to issue temporary licenses to the Baudette Arena Association; and
• remove a cap on licenses that can be issued to the University of Minnesota and remove the restriction to issue licenses at the university’s College of Agriculture.

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The following are selected bills that have been incorporated in part or in whole into the omnibus liquor bill:

• HF472 (Frederick)
• HF509 (Smith)
• HF1089 (Coulter)
• HF1121 (Duran)
• HF1262 (Franson)
• HF1668 (Gander)
• HF1741 (Kraft)
• HF1876 (Jones)
• HF2027 (O’Driscoll)
• HF2055 (Pérez-Vega)
• HF2214 (Torkelson)
• HF2552 (Kotyza-Witthuhn)