A Fair Pour
Tribal Plight
New bill would allow microdistilleries, like wineries, to have tasting rooms BY RACHEL DOVEY
A
ccording to Arthur Hartunian, it’s easier to operate a microdistillery in socially conservative Utah than in California. Hartunian is president of the California Artisanal Distillers Guild, a collective of beverage makers taking aim at the Golden State’s byzantine hard-alcohol
laws, some of which are downright counterintuitive. For example, distillers cannot sell their product directly to consumers. With one kind of license, a type 4, they can offer tastings, but they can’t charge for them. This creates a scenario akin to walking into Russian River Brewing Company, sampling a very small amount of Pliny and then being told that nobody can order a pint, or visiting a winery tasting room and
Courtesy Charbay
OUT OF THE BARREL Marko Karakasevic is a 13th-generation distiller in St. Helena who can’t directly sell his own product.
Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel Passing tells the story of two mulatto AfricanAmerican women in Harlem. One of the childhood friends passes for white and uses the ambiguity to escape from Harlem and live a different life, marrying a white man at a time when it would be illegal for her to do so. The novel is the subject of the SRJC’s spring lecture series, drawing immediate parallels to the current Supreme Court debate on the so-called hazards of gay marriage. The 1967 Supreme Court decision striking down laws prohibiting interracial marriage keeps popping up on Capitol Hill; “That was a different time,” conservative justices like Antonin Scalia argue, while making the same arguments against gay marriage that were made against interracial marriage. Hopefully, history will repeat itself. The Loving Story, a documentary about that 1967 decision, screens with a discussion on Wednesday, April 10, in Newman Auditorium at the Santa Rosa Junior College. 1501 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa. 6pm. Free.
being barred from buying a bottle of wine. “It’s been extremely crippling to my business,” says Marko Karakasevic, owner of Charbay in St. Helena and another member of the guild. “This year is our 30th anniversary. For 30 years, I’ve never been able to sell a single bottle to anyone coming to our distillery.” Instead, California distillers are bound to what’s known
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In 1851, there were roughly 8,000 Wappo Indians in the valleys of Sonoma and Napa. That number has dwindled to 340, concentrated in the Mishewal Wappo Tribe of Alexander Valley. Tribal chairman Scott Gabaldon is now fighting for federal recognition, arguing that it was an act of Congress in 1959 that took away their land and tribal status in the first place. Fears of nonexistent casino plans are forcing him to fight harder, with a July 25 U.S. District Court date to determine the tribe’s fate. Gabaldon tells the story of his tribe in the SRJC’s Newman Auditorium on Friday, April 5, at 7pm. Free.—Nicolas Grizzle
The Bohemian started as The Paper in 1978.
9 NORTH BAY BOHEMIAN | APRIL 3-9, 2013 | BOHEMIAN.COM
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Fighting for Recognition