FC: More on Wine felons unite! replies to bills in Congress

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

********

From: "Halpert, James - DC" <JJH () pipermar com>
To: "'Declan McCullagh'" <declan () well com>
Subject: RE: Wine felons unite! -- ordering online may be a crime
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 16:45:51 -0400 
MIME-Version: 1.0

Declan,

These bills would not create a new crime, but give the state AGs the ability
to get injunctions to shut down out of state sellers operating in violation
of state criminal and civil laws (don't think they'll have jurisdiction over
Australian wineries, so have no fear about that).  

Although pitched as measures to protect children from buying interstate
alcohol over the 'Net (how often does that happen?) and to protect
governments with temperance policies, their principal effect would be to
protect state-authorized liquor distributors from competition, keeping
prices inflated and reducing consumer choice.  

This would set a very negative precedent for e-commerce internationally
(think of German Sunday closing laws and Saudi reactions to lingerie
imports).

Bob Goodlatte, John Conyers and Chris Cox added an amendment to the House
bill that requires courts to consider the Commerce Clause before issuing any
of these injunctions, which would be an improvement.  

                                        -- Jim

********

From: "Jim R." <InfoCker () worldnet att net>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: RE: Wine felons unite! -- ordering online may be a crime
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 12:11:24 -0400
:
:
:
        
:
:
:

Totally agree.  Think has a lot to do with entrenched wine/liquor
distribution systems, plus perhaps state's fear of losing tax revenues.  I
believe the typical argument goes that alcohol needs strict regulatory
supervision, and the net enables underage buyers, etc.  Of course this is
all specious hooey.

The net will challenge many traditional interests, of which wine is but one
example.

Ultimately, I think the new distribution systems fostered by the net will
win out, but will be slowed by the entrenched status quo.

"Idiots" sounds appropo.

Watch out if you order that Shiraz :-).


Jim Rapp
Alexandria, Virginia

********

Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 12:13:36 -0700
To: declan () well com
From: Steve Schear <schear () lvcm com>
Subject: Re: FC: Wine felons unite! -- ordering online may be a crime
Cc: dboudreaux () fee org

These state protectionist laws are clearly unconstitutional. Anyone wishing
to challenge them, and get the jump on competitors, should get a few
out-of-the country friends to create a U.S. corporation naming them
president, treasurer and secretary (under U.S. law, only corporate officers
can be criminally liable for corporate activities) and simply ship the wine
interstate. As when plantiff lawyers find the prospective defendent is
judgement-proof, I'm willing to bet state attorney generals will think long
and hard about proceeding against out-of-state company's violating their
liquor laws if they don't have the criminal lever to pull.

I can't understand why Vitrual Vinyards' investors were too pansy to do
something like this. I guess fear really is stronger than greed. Anyone
interested in such a venture, please contact me directly.

--Steve

********

Date: Sun, 03 Oct 1999 18:20:51 -0400
From: NBII <afn41391 () afn org>
To: declan () well com
Subject: Re: FC: Wine felons unite! -- ordering online may be a crime
References: <19991001153616.UOVB29473 () alaptop hotwired com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-UIDL: 02c39e8263912e320c81cf24f2deeff1

Declan McCullagh wrote:
> [Last month in Australia I picked up a few bottles of very nice Shiraz that
> you
> just can't get in the states. But I guess ordering these online might make
> me a
> felon. Idiots. --Declan]

Yeah, it is/was idiotic. I believe at least part of the justification,
esp. here in Florida, that was used was the ease with which underage
drinkers could obtain alcohol -- there seemed to be little beyond the
credit card test done for age concerns. I specifically saw a report on
it "locally", and that was what the local FL lawmakers were up on their
high horse about.

Of course, the loss of tax revenue was also a substantial concern (the
taxes on Wine & Liquor being second only to Cigs in extremity).

Local merchants kvetching about how they could not compete was certainly
relevant, too, but would not have succeeded without reasons 1 & 2 above.
Take money out of tax rolls and they do not appreciate it at all, that's
for sure.

Some mechanism put into place for verifying age (since, clearly, the
"credit card test" does not effectively exclude 18 to 20 year olds)
might get the states to relax on this a little, but I betcha the tax
loss will keep 'em from really being interested in being sensible.


********


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology
To subscribe: send a message to majordomo () vorlon mit edu with this text:
subscribe politech
More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------