Ruling has LI's craft brewers stewing

Greenport Harbor Brewing Co. is one of 13 craft breweries in Nassau and Suffolk counties -- plus two from Brooklyn -- that will take part in the second annual Long Island Craft Beer Week, beginning Friday.

But Greenport co-owner Rich Vandenburgh says this year's events will have an added taste: controversy.

He and other craft brewery owners on the Island say talk at the events is going to be about a decision handed down in April by the State Supreme Court in Albany striking down a tax exemption for small New York breweries. The court acted after a brewery in Massachusetts sued the State Liquor Authority, saying the exemption provided the local makers with an unfair advantage.

So amid the events -- kicking off Friday night at Tap and Barrel in Smithtown and The Black Sheep Ale House in Mineola -- there will be grumbling about the court decision and questions about what it will mean for expanding young breweries and, ultimately, consumers.

Vandenburgh, an attorney who started Greenport Harbor with partner John Liegey three years ago, said that without the tax exemption his costs will rise between $15,000 and $18,000 annually.

“It's hard for us to absorb numbers like that, small as we are,“ Vandenburgh said. “It diverts funds. We're not able to buy new equipment. We see it as contrary to the type of atmosphere you want to foster in New York right now.“

Mark Burford, co-owner of Blue Point Brewing Co. in Patchogue, said his costs may rise $200,000, and as high as $250,000 next year, unless something is done to offset the loss of the tax exemption.

“If nothing is done in the long run, it will have an impact" on consumers, Burford said.

Help may be on the way. State Sen. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) and other legislators plan to introduce a bill that would provide local brewers a 14-cent-per-gallon tax credit for the first 6.2 million gallons of beer produced in the state.

“They manufacture a product,“ said Anthony Figliola, a vice president at Empire Government Strategies, a Uniondale-based lobbying firm. “They bring dollars back in" to Long Island. “And I love beer.“