Sunday brewery carryout sales OK'd

INDIANAPOLIS | Indiana microbreweries can sell beer for carryout on Sundays now that Gov. Mitch Daniels has given his assent.

State legislators voted earlier this month to exempt Indiana's small, craft breweries from a state law that generally prohibits carryout alcohol sales on Sundays. Hoosiers are now allowed to purchase the equivalent of 48 cans of beer at microbreweries such as Three Floyds Brewing in Munster and Crown Brewing in Crown Point.

The new law also requires store clerks to use a photo identification card to verify the age of any person purchasing alcohol who appears younger than 50. It also permits alcohol sales on Election Day.

The alcohol legislation was among 57 measures signed into law Friday by the Republican governor.

Other new laws Daniels approved include a prohibition against any person locked in a county jail from possessing a cellular phone, permission for 16-year-olds to donate blood with a parent's approval and a law making the records of gun permit holders inaccessible to the public and the media.

Closer to home, Daniels approved adding three members to the board of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District. The officials were removed before a November referendum that could have given board taxing authority. With voters in Porter and St. Joseph counties rejecting that proposed transit authority, the new law restores the board, which oversees the South Shore commuter railroad, to its original composition.

Daniels is expected to act on several hundred more proposals in the next two weeks.

Once the General Assembly presents him with legislation approved in identical form by both chambers, the governor has one week to sign the measure, allow it to become law without his signature or veto the proposal.