Back on October 21, 2007, I wrote an article about the new Ohio wine shipping law and how I felt it was not only bad but probably illegally restrictive and that it needed to be changed. As I stated a 2005 Supreme Court decision against the state of Indiana for similar restrictions did not give equal treatment to out of state wineries as was overturned.
To refresh your memory, the Ohio Shipping law prohibits wineries from out of state to ship wines to Ohio if the winery has a production of over 62, 000 cases. That means if you want to purchase and have shipped to Ohio the Limited Edition Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, from your favorite vineyard, you'll be breaking the law.Wine lovers united in an organization called Free the Grapes, an organization of over 300.000 wine lovers including many Nick On Wine fans, have been working to overturn the ban.
Now our State lawmakers have attempted to rework this awful piece of legislation and have come up with a revision that is just plain bad! Industry officials say the change won't do any thing except open the shipping to a few more wineries that the deal that was slipped into the June state budget without a public forum. The ban was the result of lobbing by the Wholesale Beer and Wine Association looking out for their best interests and not those of the consumer.
To read more check out Aaron Marshall's article in the Plain Dealer from last Monday. You can access it at: cleveland.com.
1 comments:
Nick, Wine lovers in Maryland have been dealing with these restrictive laws for years. There is an ongoing fight to repeal these archaic laws, but the fight has been tough, long, and to date, fruitless.
Many of us "rebels", have taken to shipping to adjacent Washington, DC and Virginia to circumvent the law. Other creative folks just have the wine labeled "Olive Oil" and ship it to their door with their fingers crossed that Maryland Tax police don't catch on.
Continue to fight the fight. Once these restrictive laws are in place, they are 10 times more difficult to retract..Cheers! WineGent
Post a Comment