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Thursday, April 29, 2010

HR 5034 – A threat to Florida Wine Sales?

On April 15th, at the urging of the National Beer Wholesalers Association, members of the U.S. Congress introduced House of Representatives 5034, titled the Comprehensive Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness Act of 2010, or the "CARE Act." Sponsors are Rep. Bill Delehunt (D) MA; Rep. Howard Coble (R) NC; Rep. Mike Quigley (D) IL; Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) UT.

This is yet another bill (albeit now on a national level) that is being introduced under the guise of promoting temperance and restricting the access to alcoholic beverages by those under the legal drinking age, while in reality seeking to protect the rights of wholesalers and restricting the rights of consumers to be able to purchase the wines of their choice, and not the choice of the distributors.

The proposed bill would effectively allow the 21st Amendment (in which individual states, not the federal government, have the primary authority to regulate alcoholic beverage sales) to trump the Constitution’s Interstate Commerce Clause, granting states immunity to litigation based on discriminatory alcohol distribution laws. The Interstate Commerce Clause essentially states that there can be no discrimination in the way that out-of-state business is treated relative to an in-state business. If an in-state winery is allowed to ship to consumers in that state, the out-of-state winery should be afforded the same right to ship to those consumers. Under HR 5034, states could legally discriminate against out-of-state wineries, even ban out-of-state shipping, and that ban could be upheld, when challenged, if the state can show, in even a slight way, that the ban will contribute positively to the “promotion of temperance, the establishment or maintenance of orderly alcoholic beverage markets, the collection of alcoholic beverage taxes, the structure of the state alcoholic beverage distribution system, or the restriction of access to alcoholic beverages by those under the legal drinking age.”

The main reason the wholesalers are pushing this bill is to keep litigation out of federal courts, where the U.S. Constitution is king, so laws regarding winery volume limits, production caps, and the ability of retailers to ship are decided at the state legislature level. However, where there is currently an avenue to pursue litigation of a law perceived to be unconstitutional, the proposed bill would render the state laws essentially above challenge. If the bill passes, consumers will be limited to locally-produced wine, plus whatever the wholesalers choose to buy. Unfortunately, wholesalers tend to buy very large-production wines—the type they can buy by the pallet, rather than the case. Both the consumer and the small and mid-size wineries will suffer as a result.

Several people testifying in favor of the bill before Congress alleged that increased deregulation of the alcohol industry would lead to rampant alcohol abuse and underage drinking. Further another “expert” lamented the "alcohol epidemic" that has befallen the United Kingdom due to deregulation of its alcohol industry, testifying that as the U.K. deregulated alcohol between 1980 and 2007, "numerous nightlife centers sprung up… these centers became scenes of drunken debauchery, with people spilling out at closing time vomiting, urinating, and passing out."

I am no expert, but I think that happens throughout the US (and the rest of the world for that matter) in establishments called bars and nightclubs that, if my memory serves, are supplied by wholesalers, not through direct shipping.

Michael Alberty, proprietor of Storyteller Wine Company in Portland, Oregon puts it best – “The beer and wine wholesalers of America realize now that most federal judges understand the interstate commerce clause and how it relates to states who want to draw up discriminatory alcohol shipping statutes. Hence the need for HR 5034. You have to take the smart people out of the debate in order to win with stupid arguments. Nice try, but it ain't going to work.”

Currently, 37 states and the District of Columbia have laws allowing direct shipping. It is unlikely that these states will introduce new legislation to reverse their position if HR 5304 is passed. Several states are considering direct shipping legislation, including Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. These states could decide to not allow direct-to-consumer shipping. In the few states that still don’t have a direct shipping law on the books, like Florida, we might see direct shipping banned under this proposed law.

For the past few years I have supported, through letter writing and through campaign contributions, those legislators in the state of Florida who supported direct-to-consumer shipping for Florida residents, and who also sought to block the severely restrictive bills backed by wine and beer wholesalers.

While this bill has just been introduced and has not yet made it out of committee, now is the time to act. Please contact your Congressional representatives (both in the House and the Senate) and urge them to vote NO on HR5034.

3 comments:

  1. As a measure of how seriously this measure is being taken by the wine industry,I received an email from Florencia Palmaz of Palmaz Vineyards, a small Napa winery asking that I contact my congressman using a customizable letter on a website called freegrapes.com. The text of the letter follows.

    Normally I send emails about new wine releases or happy news in the vineyard. However today I am compelled to write regarding a concerning development on Capitol Hill that threatens my families vineyard and your right to receive our wines.

    In an effort to turn back the clock on the direct shipment of wine to consumers, a bill has been introduced in Congress recently that would, in effect, overturn the 2005 “Granholm v. Heald” U.S. Supreme Court decision that helped pave the way for wineries to ship wine directly to many more consumers around the country.
    H.R. 5034, crafted by the National Beer Wholesalers Association would make it practically impossible to bring legal action against states’ wine shipping laws that violate the Constitution’s Commerce Clause by prohibiting wine shipment from out of state, while permitting their own in-state wineries to ship direct. The end result would be a return to discriminatory wine shipping laws within the states, creating economic hardship for wineries such as ours that consider direct shipment an important sales channel and greatly restricting choice among wine consumers nationwide.


    As a member of the Napa Valley Vintners Association we are asking all of our customers to help us fight this bill by writing to your local Representative. It is important that Members of Congress from all across the country hear from consumers as to why H.R. 5034 is bad for them. I urge you to log on to www.freethegrapes.org where you may personalize a letter to your congressional representative. To view Free the Grapes! sample language for a letter to congress click here.

    Here in California we are doing all that we can to stop this legislation from passing but we need your voice in the rest of the country to help combat this bill. On behalf of my family we thank you for taking the time to ensure that wineries such as ours can continue to exist and share our wines with you.

    Thank you for you time and and attention on this urgent matter.

    Cheers,
    Florencia Palmaz
    Palmaz Vineyards

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  2. That was freethegrapes.org rather than freegrapes.com

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  3. A while back I messaged Gary Vaynerchuk to get behind the freethegrapes cause, but not sure if it ever transpired.

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