Home brewing beer legally may be popular, but is it legal to have a moonshine still on your California property?
Not unless you have the necessary permit and license, according to the Anderson Police Department and the American Home Distillers Association.
Officers said they arrested a Shasta County man for just that on July 22 after they found a still cooking liquor over an open flame in his garage.
Police on patrol planned a probation search at a home in the 1700 block of Brigman Street on Wednesday evening, Anderson police said.
The officers reported they saw a man leave the home through the backyard, and that he didn’t respond to their calls for him to stop. Police caught up with him and took him back home during the search, they said.
During the search, police said they found in the garage an activated alcohol-producing still, a large heated tank dripping liquor into mason jars from copper piping.
“Possession of an unlicensed alcohol still, whether it is in use, assembled, dismantled, or in parts, is illegal,” the Anderson Police Department said, and it’s “prohibited to distill or make moonshine without a Distilled Spirits Permit from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.”
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The man was booked into the Shasta County Jail on suspicion he manufactured the moonshine.
Anderson police said the still also posed a danger to people in the household and neighborhood because of the flame burning in the cluttered garage. It could have started a fire or caused an explosion, they said.
Firefighters from the Anderson Fire Department came to the house and turned off the still’s burner, police said. Officers then took the dismantled still in for evidence.
Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica on Record Searchlight Facebook groups Get Out! Nor Cal, Today in Shasta County and Shaping Redding’s Future. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Anderson police find still cooking moonshine in probationer’s garage
Reporting by Jessica Skropanic, Redding Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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By Jessica Skropanic, Redding Record Searchlight | USA TODAY Network
