8 The Courier sun • MAY 12, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com Queens craft breweries can win $250,000 in grant funds to promote their drinks By Anthony Giudice agiudice@qns.com/@A_GiudiceReport Are you ready to get brewing in Queens? The state might be able to help you. As craft breweries continue to pop up across Glendale, Ridgweood, Maspeth and other parts of Queens, including Finback Brewery, Rockaway Brewing Co., Queens Brewery and Bridge and Tunnel Brewery, Empire State Development (ESD) is offering eligible breweries a chance to participate in the New York State Craft Beverage Marketing Grant Program. This $3 million Craft Beverage Marketing Grant Program was created to help increase the profile, awareness and sales of NYS-produced wine, beer, spirits and hard cider, and will provide competitive grant funding to winning breweries for the marketing and promotion of their craft beverages. Each applicant is eligible to win up to $250,000 to help cover the costs associated with the marketing and promotion, including the purchase of recognized media advertising; production costs of print collateral and audio/visual; industry related tours; marketing materials; and website design, development and updates. In order to apply for the grant, an applicant must be a not-for-profit corporation or for-profit entity representing to be eligible for funding. Organizations cannot currently be receiving tourism matching funds and/or have an active grant under the Market NY tourism initiative, and projects that are being funded by any other NYS funded program are not eligible. Not-for-profit applicants must also be pre-qualified in the NYS Grants Gateway, here. Eligible entities can apply for funding by submitting a Consolidated Funding Application. There is no deadline to apply; applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Applications are available at https://apps.cio.ny.gov/apps/cfa/. All applicants must incorporate the Taste NY initiative. Here’s how your City Council member voted on the 5-cent grocery bag tax By Robert Pozarycki rpozarycki@qns.com @robbpoz In a closer-than-anticipated vote, the City Council adopted on May 5 a bill instituting a 5-cent surcharge on grocery shoppers who opt for paper or plastic bags at the checkout counter. Twenty-eight members in all adopted the bill (Intro. 209-A), which charges customers 5 cents per paper or plastic bag used, while 20 other lawmakers voted against it. The vote came after City Council Speaker Melissa Mark- Viverito and Mayor Bill de Blasio announced their support for the measure last week. The tax aims to convince more New Yorkers to use reusable bags when grocery shopping while reducing the amount of paper and plastic in the city’s waste stream. Ten of the 14 City Council members in the Queens delegation voted for the bill: Costa Constantinides, Elizabeth Crowley, Daniel Dromm, Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, Peter Koo, I. Daneek Miller, Antonio Reynoso, Donovan Richards, Paul Vallone and Jimmy Van Bramer. Councilman Barry Grodenchik along with fellow Council members Karen Koslowitz, Rory Lancman and Eric Ulrich opposed the bill. Councilman Ruben Wills was absent from the vote for medical reasons, according to the City Council’s website. Although supporters touted the idea as a way to make the city more environmentally friendly, other lawmakers and some Queens shoppers see the surcharge as another undue financial burden on New Yorkers. In a speech delivered during Thursday’s stated meeting at City Hall, Grodenchik called the grocery bag fee “one of the most regressive pieces of legislation to ever come before this Council.” Grodenchik said the tax would likely cost grocery shoppers across the city more than $100 million annually, though the projected savings the city would experience from a reduction in paper and plastic waste amounts to about $12.5 million. “If that seems to you like an awful lot of money to spend to save $12.5 million, there is a reason for that — because it is,” he said. “While I agree with the spirit of this bill, there are better ways of achieving our common environmental goals.” De Blasio announced in a statement following the Council’s vote that he would sign the bill into law; it would take effect in October. “The Council’s legislation strikes the right balance, reducing reliance on single-use bags and incentivizing the use of reusable bags, while safeguarding consumers with some logical exemptions to protect vulnerable New Yorkers,” he said. “The Department of Sanitation projects that this 5-cent fee could reduce plastic and paper bag waste by approximately 60 percent, based on the experiences of other cities.”
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