Archive for the ‘Wine Legal Battles’ Category
We enlightened souls here in California often like to mock and disparage other states for their strange, weird, anti-consumer and downright dumb alcohol-related laws. We here in CA seem to believe that our relatively liberal and rational alcohol laws are set apart upon a higher plane than those in more back-assed states. I've been quite the mocker myself. Yet, California appears set to pass a law that defines silliness. California Assembly Bill 2184, sponsored by Assembly-person Isadore Hall, lays down…
The governor of Missouri vetoed a "Franchise" bill last week. Glory be!! Anyone unfamiliar with Franchise Laws in the alcohol industry let me explain: It's a law that protects alcohol wholesalers from having any accountability to brand owners whose product they distribute. It's a law that makes it nearly impossible for a brand owner to switch wholesalers in a state when their current distributor isn't getting the job done. Now, I'll grant that wholesalers are unlikely to see it this…
Whenever high courts take on the issue of the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause, wine industry free traders need to pay attention. It is the Commerce Clause's intent of giving the Federal Government the power to regulate inter-state commerce and the implied prohibiton against states regulating inter-state commerce, that forms the legal basis for overturning state laws that seek to protect its in-state companies from having to compete with direct shippers of wine. So it was that many in the wine…
I suspect that to many readers of this blog, the now instituted California ban on Foie Gras seems pretty stupid; perhaps even unintelligible. But there's a nice, easy way to understand how California could pass this kind of law: No one eats and no one makes Foie Gras, making the economic impact of banning the delicacy non-existent, which in turn makes the political fall out of supporting such a ban non-existent. There is another way of putting this: with no…
Tomorrow the United States Supreme Court will hand down the anxiously anticipated ruling on the Federal Affordable Healthcare law. And if, as many expect, the decision comes on a 5-4 vote of the justices down party lines, I greatly fear the consequences. Wine lovers possess a simply way of understanding the consequences of this kind of outcome I and they should fear. More than simply dismantling a law that is already in partial effect or upholding a controversial piece of…
