Section 10-4-111. Meetings of advisory board; duties; fixing opening date of marketing season; revocation of license for early sale

   (a) The board shall meet in June of each year, or upon the call of the chairman, to survey the condition of the tobacco crop and recommend an opening date of the marketing season. The chairman shall determine the time and place of the meeting.

(b) The board shall recommend to the Commissioner of Agriculture a date for the opening of the tobacco marketing season. The Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture shall invite the Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and one member of the Florida Tobacco Advisory Board to attend meetings of the Georgia Tobacco Advisory Board to submit evidence as to the opening date best suited to meet the needs of the Florida flue-cured leaf tobacco producers. The Commissioner shall cause two members of the Tobacco Advisory Board to attend the meeting of the board of governors of the Bright Belt Warehouse Association to make known the recommendations as to the opening of the marketing season in Georgia. One of these members shall be a legislative member and the other member a tobacco farmer member of the board.

(c) The Commissioner shall determine and announce the opening date of the tobacco marketing season in this state. If any licensee shall hold a sale prior to the date determined by the Commissioner, the license of the licensee shall be revoked in accordance with Chapter 13 of Title 50, the "Georgia Administrative Procedure Act," and shall not be reinstated or reissued in the calendar year of the revocation. The revocation provided in this subsection shall be in addition to the other penalties provided for the violation of this part. It is the intent and purpose of this Code section to provide a procedure for the fixing of the opening date of the tobacco marketing season and to place the final authority to fix said date in the Commissioner of Agriculture.

Ga. L. 1960, p. 214, § 9; Ga. L. 1970, p. 6, § 2.