Of the three jurisdictions that comprise the DMV (District, Maryland, Virgina) Maryland had the fewest regulations, with 6,405, followed by the District with 7,301, and Virginia had more than double that of Maryland and DC, with 15,668.
Using the Mercatus Center’s State RegData 2.0 database, researchers at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State were able to explore state-by-state regulatory variation in U.S. beer supply and value chains.
Researchers found that in 2020 there were more than 115,000 federal regulatory restrictions and an average of 10,212 formal constraints at the state level.
Rules targeting the beer supply chain varied across state lines, with the number of restrictions ranging widely, from the lowest of 1,177 in South Dakota to the most restrictions – 25,399 – in California.
“There’s a lot of regulations standing between your Corona-and-lime and a good time,” said Mercatus Center scholar, Dustin Chambers, He added: “ Even though the headlines show many people have been drinking through the pandemic, the reality is many breweries have been struggling. If we removed some unnecessary regulations, more of our local breweries across the country would be in a better spot.”