Archive for the ‘Wine Legal Battles’ Category
"If a country were starting alcohol regulation from scratch, what regulatory framework would you advise it to create and why?" This is the question that forms the basis of an essay contest now underway at The Center For Alcohol Policy (CAP). For those of you unfamiliar with CAP, it is a faux policy and educational think tank founded and funded by the National Beer Wholesalers Association, the national trade association of beer wholesalers that brought you the CARE Act in…
Yesterday's ShipCompliant DIRECT Conference provided a number of highlights. Among the highlights at a conference that focuses on the task of complying with direct shipping regulations and how to sell more wine direct was the announcement that Winery-To-Consumer shipments of wine had increased 11.5% over the past 12 months to a whopping $1.35 Billion dollars. I was very pleased to be able to moderate the session yesterday where Kent Nowlin of ShipCompliant and Danny Brager of Nieslen presented the various…
It appears that Canadians are set to solve their wine shipping dilemma in one fell swoop: legislation is likely to pass that will finally allow Canadian wine lovers to have wines shipped to them across provinces, a simple thing that has been banned since 1928. Canada went through its own Prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s. It lasted for a shorter time than here in America and most laws were repealed by the end of the decade. But one legacy…
Friday, June 1 is the beginning of something very novel yet very old: a free market in liquor in Washington State. On Friday private businesses will be charged with retailing whiskey, gin, tequila, scotch and all other spirits in Washington State, an activity controlled exclusively by state government since the 1930's. What's very old act of a private company such as a liquor store or grocery store selling spirits to the public. What's novel is that it is happening in…
State alcohol regulators, the bureaucrats that enforce the liquor laws in each state, have had it tough over the past few years. Budgets have been cut to account for reduced revenue and debt, while at the same time new challenges have confronted the regulators from increased products in the market to new technologies that challenge existing regulatory structures. Two types of regulatory structures exist in the various states: The "Control State" and the "Open State". The primary difference is in…
