This section states the Legislature’s intent to regulate alcoholic beverages, keep the state’s three-tier control system, and preserve remaining provisions if any part is invalid.
(a) The Legislature hereby finds and declares that this chapter is enacted pursuant to the authority granted to the state under the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution, the powers reserved to the state under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the inherent powers of the state under the Constitution of Alabama of 2022, in order to regulate the traffic of alcoholic beverages and to substitute the regulations and oversight established in Act 2021-419 for the application of federal and state antitrust laws that otherwise would apply to any potential anti-competitive effects of this title. For the avoidance of doubt, the intent of the Legislature is to maintain the uniform three-tier system of control over the sale, purchase, taxation, transportation, manufacture, consumption, and possession of alcoholic beverages in the state to promote the health, safety, and welfare of residents of this state by, among other purposes, ensuring the state shall be able to register, audit, inspect, seize, recall and test alcoholic beverages shipped into, distributed, and sold throughout this state; and this expression of the policy and intent of the Legislature is intended to satisfy the clear articulation test for state action immunity as has been established by the United States Supreme Court in California Retail Liquor Dealers Assn. v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., et al. (b) If any provision of this chapter, or its application to any person or circumstance, is determined by a court to be invalid or unconstitutional, that provision shall be stricken and the remaining provisions shall be construed in accordance with the intent of the Legislature to further limit rather than expand commerce in alcoholic beverages, including by prohibiting any commerce in alcoholic beverages not expressly authorized, and to enhance strict regulatory control over taxation, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages through the existing uniform system of regulation of alcoholic beverages.