Archive for the ‘Wine Legal Battles’ Category
It's remarkable!! An initiative that is currently gathering signatures for California's November ballot would, if approved by the voters, increase the tax on a bottle of wine by 12,675% TWELVE THOUSAND SIX-HUNDRED SEVENTY FIVE PERCENT!!! How could this possibly be justified? The initiative's sponsors, Josephine and Kent M. Whitney, provide the following reasoning: (a) Alcohol-related problems cost Californians an estimated $38.4 billion annually, including the costs of illness and injury, the criminal justice system, lost productivity, impacts on the welfare…
There are treats to be had by working in the wine industry and I'm not talking the food and wine that does indeed flow so copiously. Rather, I'm talking about the opportunities I'm fortunate enough to have to share ideas with colleagues and learn from the best. I had such an opportunity last week when I spent time in Seattle at TASTE Washington. I was invited to sit on a couple seminar panels at the annual celebration of Washington wines….
Today, on Capital Hill, we saw what millions of dollars in campaign donations and lobbying buys: Your own congressional hearing to consider creating a exemption from competiton and an exemption from having to adhere to the Constitution. I swear this is not a joke. But from some of the clownish proposals and Clowns that testified on behalf of these suggestions you'd have thought that the Clowns had rushed Capital Hill. Today in the Sub-Committee on Courts and Competition, of House…
This blog reaches upwards of 25,000+ unique individuals monthly. Half of those work in or around the wine industry. This Manifesto is meant for them. If it leads to discussion, anger, contemplation or results—any of that would be a fine outcome. A MANIFESTO OF REFORM AND CHANGE TO THE WINE INDUSTRY Let us concede that as a culture early embedded with a mistrust of alcohol and with a history of such abusive practices surrounding the sale and use of alcohol…
A decision in Illinois today by the Illinois Liquor Control Commission delivered proof of what so many of us have come to understand as the truth: the Three tier system has evolved into the "Wholesaler Protection System" while the various alcohol beverage and liquor control commissions in the different states have become the enforcers of that corrupt system. Today the Illinois Liquor Control Commission ruled against Anheuser-Busch's bid to buy out its Chicago-area distributor so that it might distribute its…
