Legislators in Florida have identified a serious problem in their state: Microbreweries who sell directly to customers. Craft beer makers are understandably outraged at the idea that they should have to first sell their beer to a distributor and then buy it back before selling to customers. But new Republican-sponsored legislation does just that. The beer doesn’t even have to leave the brewer’s premises; just process the paperwork and pay the middlemen. Obviously it’s nothing but a payoff for distributors. Evidently “Big Beer” is sour-faced about the competition they’re facing from smaller (and better in our humble opinion) brewers and lobbied for the ridiculous law. That’s what happens with cronyism – both sides become drunk on power.