| ★ wanayoo — archive 1999 http://webwinery.com/alert.html | Nouvelle recherche | Portail wanayoo |
|
|
|
|
|
Subj: NATIONAL ALERT! It appears there may be a wholesaler conspiracy in the works...if you hadn't heard, Georgia is proposing legislation to make shipping wine a felony in a law patterned after our redneck friends in Kentucky, where the wholesalers virtually wrote the legislation and more than 100 wineries pulled out of the state...refusing to do even legal, 3-tier business there. Reliable sources tell us Arkansas and South Carolina have joined the list, and that Mississippi is next. If passed, these states (and KY) will the only ones in the Union where it will be possible to do more time in prison (KY provides for sentences of five years) for shipping a bottle of wine than for robbing or assaulting someone. Hell, some killers don't do five years. Why is this happening? Because the wholesale wine and liquor dealers, one of the last (and a constitutionally questionable one at that) government sanctioned monopolies in the land is being challenged more every day, and part of the reason is this internet we are all communicating on. People assume that in a "free" and "democratic" society that they can buy any legal product any place they want to and transport it to wherever they happen to live. They are shocked to find out that most states have laws banning the importation of so much as a single bottle from a neighboring state...and for the most part they ignore the laws because of their very unfairness. So all those visitors to the Finger Lakes of New York, the Napa Valley of California, the wineries of Missouri and 41 other wine-producing states, are buying wines when they visit and taking them home..via trains, planes and automobiles...every purchase and transportation being illegal. And via the internet and various national publications, they are discovering that maybe the outrageous taxes and madatory mark-ups in their home state are forcing them to pay such high prices for wine, that they can buy it cheaper in another states, pay airfreight and still get it cheaper...and they are doing that. Now the arguments you are going to hear from the wholesalers and their puppets (the state alcohol police) and the legislators they pay off to sponsor these bills making wine shipping a felony, will tell you many reasons why interstate wine shipping must be regulated, when other legal produce is not. They will tell you it is because the state has no means of collecting its excise and sales taxes. What they won't tell you is that they make no legal provisions for wineries or retailers in other states to pay those taxes... They will complain that it takes business away from local merchants. So what? Are we going to Balkanize the U.S. and ban sales of other kinds of products across state lines? No more Sharper Image? No more Book of the Month Club? No more every other kind of mail order product? They will tell you it is a dangerous, regulated product and that's what makes wine, beer and spirits different...what they can't explain is why, then, it is legal to buy prescription narcotics across state lines from mail order pharmacies such as those operated by AARP and others. Are they trying to tell us that a bottle of wine is more dangerous than codeine or morphine or various uppers and downers? They will tell you it is a problem with minors...kids are going to be ordering alcohol via the phone and or internet. What they don't explain is how some teeny-bopper is going to have the credit card, the interest in spending $200 on a case of wine via airfreight, an address where the goods can be delivered when the kid knows mommy and daddy aren't going to be home instead of them, AND that the delivery man won't ask for an adult signature. That's a lot to suppose for a mail order minor. Have there been instances of minors buying licensed beverages via the mails? You betcha...but everyone I have ever heard of has been a sting, made to happen at the instigation of some adult with a local monopoly to protect or a local tax to collect. I've told you why the problem of states turning wine shipping into a felony is happening...I didn't thoroughly explain why they are able to get away with it, when it serves so few and does a disservice to so many...it's all about money and corruption. Both the laws on the books and the new felony provisions are/were proposed by the wholesalers (and sometimes with the help of local retailers...but the wholesalers are almost always the instigators). They are the only ones to benefit. They certainly aren't laws that the millions of consumers would pass. Here's the amazing part...most states only have two to three or four major wholesalers...so how can so few entities have so much power? Especially when they are only 3-4 and we consumers number in the millions? They are powerful because they make large donations (some would suggest bribes, but like they say, "Money is the mother's milk of politics") to the state legislators...and most of those individuals don't contribute squat...and the ones that do, aren't organized to either support or oppose legislation of this type. So it's just another instance of special interest politics. Can it be stopped? It can...if enough consumers make enough noise in every possible way...and the most important thing is to do it immediately. There was a lot of noise in Kentucky, but it came too late. The law was virtually on the books before the papers started telling the story of the small winery boycott, irate consumers and so on. Had that publicity came earlier, the politicians might have been hesitant to vote for an unpopular bill. Residents of Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas and Mississippi (and any others that join this anti free enterprise conspiracy)...what will it mean to you if your states makes shipping wine from another state a felony? Well, plan on doing without some of your favorite brands and wines. Some of the very best California, Washington and Oregon wineries are so small that they sell everything direct...and why should they risk going to jail and losing their license for you? Other small wineries, even the ones currently selling to your wholesalers will pull all their wines out of your state. Why? Because if they can sell all their wines somewhere else...why sell them in a state that is so obviously inhospitable to wine. Even important wineries like Kendall-Jackson pulled all their wines out of Kentucky...so consider that you may not get anymore K-J Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay without crossing a stateline or becoming your own bootlegger. And your local prices will probably go up. With no out-of-state competition to keep them in line, the locals will charge whatever they feel like cause they know there's not a damned thing you can do about it. So those of you immediately affected...call and write to as many state legislators as possible. Write letters to the editor of every newspaper in your state and don't let the bad guys mislead the media...when they use their bogus reasons for banning shipments, expose them for the lies that they are. Feel free to contact me for documentation you might need...if I don't have it, I'll get it for you. And don't feel smug if at the moment all this action is pretty much limited to the redneck, bible belt south...it's coming to your state soon, because this is a national conspiracy. A recent sting action in Mass. is setting stage for something similar to the GA,SC, AR action in the near future. Keep your ear to the ground and take immediate action if it starts in your state. The only way consumers/citizens can fight the money and special interest is to make lots of noise and expose the bad guys to the light of day...go get 'em. Here's a final point to ponder..re all these felony laws and added restrictions on interstate wine shipments...has anyone noticed that they are only aimed at wineries and retailers in other states...these slimy politicians are too clever to write the laws so their own citizens are threatened. It is like jailing prostitutes and sending their customers home...it is like taking the very license to do business away from a retailer, on top of a heavy fine, for selling to a minor, while not doing diddley to the minor...when the minor was the one truly responsible for the law being broken in the first place. The retailer could argue that he thought the minor old enough...the minor knows he/she is a minor! I say fine the minor and let the retailer go. But the point is the state of Kentucky, which wants to put some poor grape farmer in jail for five years for selling a bottle of wine to one of its citizens, isn't about to put the doctor, lawyer or Indian chief from Louisville who ordered the wine in the slammer over the same bottle of wine...nor are they going to do anything to them...because they know the public outcry would end the law instantly. So ask your politicians why the laws are one way...this policy may be part of a legal challenge against these laws by the way. The Wine Curmudgeon Online
|
