According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), the fiscal implications of HB 3385 cannot be precisely determined at this time because the number of farm winery permits that may be issued and the number of current permits that might be consolidated into the new category are unknown. The bill would create a new Farm Winery Permit, with an associated permit fee capped at $500 annually. Half of the permit fees collected would be directed to the General Revenue Fund, while the other half would be deposited into a newly established Farm Winery Marketing Assistance Fund.

The Farm Winery Marketing Assistance Fund would be a dedicated account within the General Revenue Fund, composed of permit fees, legislative appropriations to the Department of Agriculture, investment earnings, and any gifts, grants, or donations. The Department of Agriculture would use these funds to promote and market farm wineries across the state.

According to the Comptroller of Public Accounts, it is not possible to project the bill’s overall revenue impact due to the unpredictable number of permit applications and potential permit consolidations. However, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) and the Department of Agriculture anticipate no significant fiscal impact on their operations. Similarly, any fiscal implications for local governments are currently indeterminate, pending actual participation levels by local wineries.

While HB 3385 attempts to provide Texas wineries with greater flexibility by creating a new Farm Winery Permit and allowing expanded off-site sales, the bill ultimately accepts and builds onto a fundamentally flawed and outdated regulatory system. Instead of freeing wineries to sell their products directly to consumers whenever and wherever they choose, as any normal business should be allowed to do, the bill creates yet another permit, additional bureaucratic rules, and new compliance obligations.

Even though the proposed permit is voluntary and relatively low-cost, it still represents an unnecessary expansion of state regulatory authority. Rather than adding new layers of permission slips for businesses to operate, Texas should focus on repealing outdated restrictions and trusting businesses and consumers to engage freely in the marketplace. In the long run, layering new permits onto a broken structure only makes it harder to achieve true reform and a genuinely free enterprise system.

For these reasons, Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote NO on HB 3385. The Legislature should seek to eliminate needless restrictions on wineries entirely, not perpetuate the mindset that government must approve ordinary business activity through new licenses and fees.

• Individual Liberty: The bill modestly advances individual liberty by giving winery owners more choices — allowing them to open multiple off-site retail locations and sell larger amounts of their product directly to customers. However, true individual liberty means the freedom to engage in lawful commerce without first seeking government permission. By creating a new Farm Winery Permit and requiring wineries to qualify for additional regulatory approval, the bill still places government in a gatekeeping role. It improves the current situation but leaves individual freedom ultimately subject to bureaucratic control, which falls short of respecting full individual rights.
• Personal Responsibility: The bill positively impacts personal responsibility by empowering wineries to directly manage their customer relationships, operations, and sales across multiple locations. Instead of requiring wineries to go through third-party distributors or retailers, it gives businesses more agency to succeed or fail based on their own effort, planning, and service to consumers. This shift toward trusting businesses with more direct control aligns with the principle that individuals and private businesses should be responsible for their own outcomes without unnecessary government interference.
• Free Enterprise: While the bill opens up more market opportunities for Texas wineries compared to today’s restrictive laws, it does so by creating a new permitting system rather than simply removing barriers. Free enterprise thrives when individuals and businesses can operate without needing new government licenses for basic commercial activities. Although the bill lowers some practical barriers, it reinforces the idea that new economic freedoms must be earned through additional regulation and fees, which fundamentally conflicts with the pure free enterprise principle.
• Private Property Rights: The bill supports private property rights to a limited degree. It allows winery owners more freedom to use their land and products, namely, by expanding where they can sell their wine. Owners would have the right to open more locations and market their products more broadly. However, because these expanded uses are conditional on obtaining a new permit, property owners' rights are still treated as privileges that the state must authorize, not as inherent rights that the government should simply protect.
• Limited Government: The bill expands the role of government, albeit in a relatively narrow way. It tasks the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) with creating new regulations, managing a new permitting system, and overseeing a new marketing fund. Although the administrative burden is small and partially self-funded, the creation of any new permit structure, rather than simplifying or repealing existing restrictions, signals a continued growth of government oversight over lawful economic activities. This is inconsistent with the principle of keeping government small, limited, and unobtrusive.

• SB 2038 (Same As)