Archive for the ‘Wine Legal Battles’ Category
There is an unusual collaboration and coherence among America’s alcohol beverage producers at this moment when it comes to politics. Just about everyone, from distillers to brewers to wineries—of every size—are lobbying federal lawmakers seeking an extension or permanent status to the current federal alcohol excise tax. It’s about the money, as it usually is. I don’t have a strong opinion on the propriety of making permanent the lower federal alcohol excise tax rate arrived at two years ago. However,…
I’m not a fan of President Donald Trump. It’s concerning to me that he is the first president in my lifetime that I’m positive I could do a better job of running the country. But I’m also not a fan of petty wastefulness. And that is exactly what the attempt to revoke the liquor license at the President’s Washington, DC hotel amounts to. The claim was that President Trump’s liquor license at the Trump Washington, DC Hotel should be revoked…
There is no getting around the fact that alcohol regulation requires bureaucracy. All state and federal regulatory efforts don’t function without a bureaucratic element. Moreover, such bureaucracies are often very slow-moving, opaque, and too often unresponsive to critics and concerns of how they operate. However, in the case of the California Alcohol Beverage Commission, you have a bureaucratic agency moving so fast and in such an inconsiderate way with the implementation of a new alcohol server program that has the…
There is a dynamic currently in play among America’s alcohol regulators and the alcohol community as a whole that threatens Wineries’ direct-to-consumer shipping rights. Over the past month, I’ve sat through two conferences aimed at educating America’s alcohol regulatory community, its attorneys and the leadership of the three tiers. I attended the Center for Alcohol Policy’s Legal Conference in Boston and most recently the National Conference of State Liquor Administrator’s Central/Western Conference in Boston. At both conferences, there was a…
Reciprocity! It’s a word associated with the concept of direct to consumer wine shipments that has not been bandied about for some time. But it turns out that there is a selection of states that still require reciprocal wine shipping agreements. It also turns out reciprocal wine shipping laws are unconstitutional. As a reminder, “Reciprocal” wine shipping laws are those in which State #1 passes a law allowing wineries or retailers in other states to ship in so long as…
