« Ind. Decisions - One Indiana opinion today from 7th Circuit | Main | Ind. Decisions - Court of Appeals issues 3 today (and 7 NFP) »

Monday, December 06, 2010

Law - "Shipping law far from settled: High court ruling only introduced more confusion"

Adding to the ILB's lengthy list of entries on wine shipping, Dan and Krista Stockman, who write the "Uncorked" column for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Saturday had a good overview of the current status of the law, and how we got to where we are. A sample:

To bring you up to speed, before 2005 the nation had a patchwork of state laws regulating how, or if, wine you bought could be delivered directly to your doorstep. Then the Supreme Court tried to level the playing field, saying it was unconstitutional for states to let in-state wineries ship to customers while prohibiting out-of-state wineries from doing so.

That actually made things much more complicated, as wine wholesalers, sensing their legalized monopolies might be threatened if people could choose what they wanted to buy and from whom, had states writing all sorts of new laws to stamp shipping out altogether. In the meantime, wineries and wine lovers were headed to court with that 2005 Supreme Court decision in hand trying to open things back up.

Five years later, we still have a patchwork of state laws, only now they’re complicated by competing court decisions and the threat that the wholesalers and the legislators that work for them can turn everything upside down with the stroke of a pen. In Indiana, for example, any winery can ship directly to customers if – and only if – you have been to the winery in person and filled out a state form to prove it. And don’t think about trying to have a wine shipped to you if it is sold in even one store or restaurant in the state.

But notice that so far we’ve only mentioned wineries. And remember how we said it has gotten even more complicated?

Well, now the Specialty Wine Retailers Association has asked the Supreme Court to review a Texas court decision on whether wine stores can ship directly to customers. The Specialty Wine Retailers Association is a trade group of wine stores, and just as wineries did in the first Supreme Court decision, they’re asking the court to declare that states like Texas cannot allow in-state stores to ship while prohibiting out-of-state stores from doing so.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 6, 2010 12:39 PM
Posted to General Law Related