In 1983, the California state legislature successfully passed Assembly Bill 3610, amending Section 23357 of the California Business and Professions Code relating to alcoholic beverages. Statewide, producers of beer could legally sell their products on the site of their production, or sell their products in a location that also served food. Known now as “The Bates Bill,” the new law allowed the explosive growth of microbreweries and brewpubs, first throughout California, and subsequently the rest of the country when other states followed this example. Another relic of post-Prohibition law had been discarded, further encouraging the young craft brewing industry.
Eric Ortega, “The Golden State of Brewing; California’s Economic and Cultural Influence in the American Brewing Industry” (Master’s thesis, California State University, Fullerton, 2015), 72-73.