What's happening
This bill requires all alcoholic beverages sold at retail for off-premises consumption in New York to display a calorie content label.
Why it matters
Promotes informed consumer choices. By requiring calorie counts on alcohol labels, the bill gives consumers clearer information about what they're drinking, similar to what’s already available for food and soft drinks. This could help people make healthier decisions, especially those monitoring their calorie intake.
Aligns alcohol labeling with public health goals. The requirement supports broader efforts to combat obesity and related health issues by increasing transparency about the caloric impact of alcoholic beverages, a significant but often overlooked source of extra calories.
Places new compliance and operational demands on producers and retailers. Manufacturers must conduct reliable analyses of their products (using lab testing or official databases) to determine calorie content and update labeling accordingly, potentially increasing costs and logistical challenges, especially for small producers.
Standardizes how calorie information is presented. The bill specifies that calorie counts must be as prominent as alcohol content on the packaging, and sets precise rules for rounding calorie values, ensuring that information is clear, consistent, and hard to miss for shoppers.
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Who cares
Off-premises alcohol retailers
The bill would prohibit them from selling alcoholic beverages without calorie labels on their containers.
Alcoholic beverage producers
Their products offered for off-premises sale would need calorie labels based on verifiable analysis and at least as prominent as the alcohol content listing.
Consumers buying alcohol for off-premises consumption
They would receive clearly displayed calorie information for the size and portion normally offered for sale.
Headline styles
Require Calorie Labels on Alcohol
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
1 Co-sponsor
History
- Referred to economic development
- Referred to economic development
Full text
2 pagesUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
3321
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 29, 2019
Introduced by M. of A. ORTIZ, NORRIS -- read once and referred to the Committee on Economic Development
AN ACT to amend the alcoholic beverage control law, in relation to requiring alcoholic beverages sold at retail for off-premises consumption include a calorie content value label
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Section 105 of the alcoholic beverage control law is amended by adding a new subdivision 24 to read as follows:
24. No retail licensee for off-premises consumption shall sell any alcoholic beverage without a calorie content value label affixed to or imprinted upon the container of such alcoholic beverage pursuant to section one hundred seven-a of this article.
§ 2. Section 107-a of the alcoholic beverage control law is amended by adding a new subdivision 6 to read as follows:
6. (a) No alcoholic beverage shall be offered for sale for off-premises consumption unless there is a calorie content value label affixed to or imprinted upon the container of such alcoholic beverage in the form and with the content required by this subdivision. Such calorie content value shall be listed clearly and conspicuously on the bottle, can, or other such container of the alcoholic beverage in a font and format that is at least as prominent, in size and appearance, as that used to post the alcohol content of such alcoholic beverage. For purposes of this subdivision, "calorie content value" means the number of calories in an alcoholic beverage in the size and portion normally offered for sale, as determined pursuant to a method that complies with paragraph (b) of this subdivision.
(b) Calorie content values required by this subdivision shall be based upon a verifiable analysis of an alcoholic beverage, which may include the use of nutrient databases, laboratory testing, or other reliable methods of analysis, and shall be rounded to the nearest ten calories
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD07454-01-9
A. 3321 2
for calorie content values above fifty calories and to the nearest five calories for calorie content values of fifty calories or below.
§ 3. This act shall take effect one year after it shall have become a law. Effective immediately, the addition, amendment and/or repeal of any rule or regulation necessary for the implementation of this act on its effective date are authorized to be made on or before such date.
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.