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Supreme Court Allows Direct Shipment of Wine
jrrl writes "For a while now, ordering wine (of the alcoholic variety, not the almost 0.9 variety) online has been a somewhat dicey proposition in some states. But today, the Supreme Court overturned state laws that disallowed direct shipment of wine from out of state. Their reasoning is that the states' 'authority to regulate the sale of alcohol within their borders' under the 21st Amendment does not supersede 'the Constitution's ban on state discrimination against interstate commerce.' States could still disallow all direct shipments, but at least they have to be evenhanded now."
Actually the result of this ruling is that states must ban all--regardless of origin--direct to consumer sales if they block them at all.
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The supreme court merely ruled that states could not treat intra-state state sales differently from out of state sales.
The ruling preserves state control over this issue as long as the policy doesn't discriminate against out of state sellers.
see: http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2005/05/suprem
This ruling might be good news for some folks in the long term, but in the short term at least it doesn't help folks in Maryland (and from what I can tell most other states). The existing state laws here don't contradict the USSC requirements.
Useful links:
Wine Institute pages on interstate wine shipping:
http://www.wineinstitute.org/shipwine/
US Wine shipping laws, state-by-state, from Wine Institute data
http://wi.shipcompliant.com/Home.aspx
Status of Maryland state laws is that individual wineries have to pay a $10 annual license fee, and that only allows them to ship wines that aren't otherwise available locally, and then they still have to use the three-tier system (so they have to ship to a distributor/wholesaler who then ships to a retailer near me).
That's a pretty painful process, and it's not obvious that it produces a useful result. (If the wine is sold anywhere in the state, then it's not eligible for this shipping method AFAICT, even if there's nowhere within an hour's drive that stocks the wine...)
Needless to say, it's more likely that I'd have such a wine shipped to a friend in a nearby state, or just find a store in DC/VA with a better selection where I can actually buy that wine. But that doesn't address things like "wine of the month" clubs which might be nice but which simply can't comply with Maryland restrictions.
It's fundamental to the way the US economic system was set up that the States are prohibited from acting in a protective manner over their industries with regard to other States. You can't charge a tarriff, for example, when you import cars into California from Detroit. What a State can do is regulate the way something is sold within its borders. It seems to me Section 2 of the 21st Amendment was put there to overcome objections from those States that wanted to remain dry after Prohibition was repealed for everyone else. I think the Supremes are holding them to this. States are still allowed to prohibit mail-order booze -- but they must prohibit all of it, not allow it from in-state producers and not those from out-of-state. Many of these laws (IIRC) were frankly written to protect local wine producers. That ain't allowed.
I agree that Michigan's desired ban seems silly. But if that's what they want, they can have it. The idea that people have the right and responsibility to mostly regulate their own local affairs as they see fit is basic to our federal system. That's why we have a federal government and not a national government. (It's been acting more like the latter than the former lately. That's no reason to wish it could when we want it to -- to, say, force Michigan to allow Internet wine sales -- and similtaneously wish it wouldn't when we don't -- in, for example, the way some "homeland security" issues are being handled.)
And the brethren went away edified.
Section 2 of the 21 amendment allows states to regulate the interstate commerce of wine to some extent (the extent of which was at issue today):
The question then is not whether states can regulate the importation of wine, but the extent of the states' power to declare which importation is "in violation of the laws thereof." The Supreme Court held today that this was intended to reflect the intent of the framers of this amendment that the normal dormant commerce clause analysis was to apply, that is, states can't discriminate against the products of other states but may generally regulate interstate commerce if done without discrimination and for a valid purpose (here, provided by the 21st amendment itself).
IAAL.
sig my booty, check my website
When I was investigating a start-up, I began to read about all the different liquor laws across the country. Quite frankly, its insane. Here in Texas, certain beverage sizes are restricted to an uncommon size and wholesalers control the entire market. Alcohol producers cannot send product directly to stores it MUST BY LAW go through a distributor then sent on to your local store. Literally there are warehouses where all they do is unload the truck and reload another right there. Thank the Texas legislature and a whole lot of campaign contributions for that one.
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If your really interested in learning more about the situation and how crazy it gets you can read this great article from the Houston Press (Houston's Counter Culture Weekly Magazine) here
http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2005-04-07/new