Wine Politics Again!
--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: mcooley@pop.tiac.net Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 22:25:28 To: dcsb@ai.mit.edu From: Marianne Cooley <mcooley@nethorizons.com> Subject: Wine Politics Again! Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: bounce-dcsb@ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Marianne Cooley <mcooley@nethorizons.com> This one is not just an Internet message. In fact, I should probably take it to my marketing list ;)--but just to keep y'all up to date with the latest commerce developments. Marianne forwarded message: Hello friends of the Virtual Vineyards and family wineries. Remember the felony direct shipping law in Georgia I wrote about a few weeks ago? Well, Governor Miller signed it, unfortunately. Ship a bottle of wine, go to jail. Amazing. Here it is again, this time in Florida. The wholesale liquor lobby is pushing a bill through the state houses making it a felony to ship a bottle of wine to a Florida consumer. If you believe, as we do, that this is unreasonable restraint of legitimate commerce, please register your opposition directly with Governor Chiles. This is not just a Florida issue, as other states are watching the development of such laws very closely. If you have friends in Florida please pass this on to them and urge them to act quickly. The bill will soon be on the governor's desk. Here is a sample letter for Governor Chiles with several ways to contact him. Personalize it if you wish, or send it as is: E-Mail: chilesl@eog.state.fl.us Fax: 904-487-0801 Phone: 904-488-4441 Governor Lawton Chiles Office of the Governor Florida State Capitol, Talahassee, Florida 32399-0001 Dear Governor Chiles: I call upon you to veto HB 725 (SB336), the felony direct shipment bill. This bill is sponsored by the state's Liquor wholesalers in order to protect their monopoly on wine sold to Florida consumers. Out-of-state sellers of wine support Florida Attorney General Butterworth's counter-proposal, and are willing to register with Florida, pay state excise and sales taxes and assure that all Florida laws protecting minors are observed. If HB 725 becomes law, Florida wine consumers' choices of products will be narrowly limited to the few wines represented by the Liquor wholesalers and Florida itself will be making a statement that small family winegrape growers and wineries in over 40 states deserve to go to jail, and lose their farms and vineyards, if they ship a bottle of wine to a customer who happens to reside in Florida. HB 725 is hostile to consumers and agriculture. I urge you to use your veto. Sincerely yours, Peter D. Granoff, M.S./Virtual Vineyards http://www.virtualvin.com 800-289-1275 415-938-9463 415-919-1977 fax 3803 East Bayshore Rd., Suite 175 Palo Alto, CA 94303 ********************************************************************* Marianne Cooley Internet Special Interest Group NetHorizons Unlimited SigNet.org--where online users meet mcooley@nethorizons.com http://www.signet.org 617.433.0825 Join "Life at Internet Speed" on www.boston.com Wednesdays from 1-2pm! For a chat topic reminder, send an email to majordomo@signet.org and write "subscribe life" (no quotation marks) in the body of the message. ********************************************************************** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe from the dcsb list, send a letter to: Majordomo@ai.mit.edu In the body of the message, write: unsubscribe dcsb Or, to subscribe, write: subscribe dcsb If you have questions, write to me at Owner-DCSB@ai.mit.edu --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
At 4:09 AM -0800 5/9/97, Robert Hettinga wrote:
--- begin forwarded text
X-Sender: mcooley@pop.tiac.net Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 22:25:28 To: dcsb@ai.mit.edu From: Marianne Cooley <mcooley@nethorizons.com> Subject: Wine Politics Again! : Hello friends of the Virtual Vineyards and family wineries. Remember the felony direct shipping law in Georgia I wrote about a few weeks ago? Well, Governor Miller signed it, unfortunately. Ship a bottle of wine, go to jail. Amazing. ...
Thanks, Marianne and Bob, for the news. I am shipping a few bottles of California's finest merlot (much nicer that the trendy cabernets) to my sister and her husband in Hollywood, FL. Always nice to poke a sharp stick in the eyes of the fascists while also adding to my list of felonies (should I ever again enter Florida, which seems doubtful, at least not for a while). Chiles and his co-conspirators should be shot for high crimes against the Constitution. After Clinton, Freeh, Kerrey, and the other traitors. Every day that passes, I'm more convinced that McVeigh did the right thing. Some innocents died, but, hey, war is hell. Broken eggs and all that. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 09:26 PM 5/9/97 -0800, Tim May wrote:
At 4:09 AM -0800 5/9/97, Robert Hettinga wrote:
--- begin forwarded text
X-Sender: mcooley@pop.tiac.net Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 22:25:28 To: dcsb@ai.mit.edu From: Marianne Cooley <mcooley@nethorizons.com> Subject: Wine Politics Again! : Hello friends of the Virtual Vineyards and family wineries. Remember the felony direct shipping law in Georgia I wrote about a few weeks ago? Well, Governor Miller signed it, unfortunately. Ship a bottle of wine, go to jail. Amazing. ...
Thanks, Marianne and Bob, for the news.
I am shipping a few bottles of California's finest merlot (much nicer that the trendy cabernets) to my sister and her husband in Hollywood, FL.
Always nice to poke a sharp stick in the eyes of the fascists while also adding to my list of felonies (should I ever again enter Florida, which seems doubtful, at least not for a while).
Chiles and his co-conspirators should be shot for high crimes against the Constitution. After Clinton, Freeh, Kerrey, and the other traitors.
Every day that passes, I'm more convinced that McVeigh did the right thing. Some innocents died, but, hey, war is hell. Broken eggs and all that.
Florida is just following the lead of Kentucky (I am not sure of the state. Check the Wall Street Journal from last Thursday or Friday.) that has also made shipping alcohol by mail a felony. Seems the local distributors have been having a fit about companies like Liquor By Mail cutting into their monopoly. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQEVAwUBM3VRTOQCP3v30CeZAQHEuAf8CEixy9WS0THMz+YmVVmCTebR9Nl7l8ew Sd1+jeTnZ3aXENRx/GCSfk1kfE2GwOid64SYgeOHuxCHKS8kCZBApLVIYuUwmw3f MfIJtf14KZi0UGPafNMqVked87anaKTtgSY9Vz/FjKRI7j0oWeKsAPYU5QBHQCLp oQQj8DA/yrkB1RoywhcT0HjSjReEodFjT8kkD24WZUxdozBgMePpyB9yhzxK1pMz QEIu2av5ueqPDSPFJ5JtnJvaDPwGGqtOBv6LlxH6Qem7ODyLp4uMzHewqbIsby4/ tU51hFqBJu2vPpp78XTOn6sdb+h/Xy58vG9FOV1vUtXlqMnYAtGwYA== =DZo0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --- | "Mi Tio es infermo, pero la carretera es verde!" | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan@ctrl-alt-del.com|
At 09:26 PM 5/9/97 -0800, Tim May wrote:
I am shipping a few bottles of California's finest merlot (much nicer than the trendy cabernets) to my sister and her husband in Hollywood, FL.
You're a bit late - merlots have been getting more trendy :-) But Chiles hasn't signed the Florida law quite yet, so you're also early. Do they even _grow_ wine in Florida? You'd think it would be the cocaine industry trying to get their product regulated to keep prices high.
There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws.
It's especially ridiculous that shipping wine should be a *felony*. Mike Froomkin points out that the Constitutional Amendment ending Prohibition lets states make their own stupid decisions like this, and it probably overrides Commerce Clause controls. You'd expect that a law that's made primarily to protect business interests would have business-oriented penalties - like fines for conducting wine-shipping without a wine-shipping license, or triple fines for not filling out paperwork in triplicate. Does anyone know if either state's laws also penalize the recipient of the Demon Grape, or only the sender? (And is there a list of the state legislators on-line? "Dear Senator Foobar: If you'd passed S.B.336, you'd be busted now!") About 10 years ago, New Jersey legalized home-made wine and beer, with a requirement that you get a $3 permit. Nobody'd particularly realized it wasn't legal, and in a heavily Italian state people had been making wine at home since Prohibition ended (...), and everybody agreed it was stupid to keep it illegal. But the burons wanted to retain _some_ control, hence the permit. Enough people complained about it that they dropped the permit requirement pretty quickly. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)
participants (4)
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Alan Olsen -
Bill Stewart -
Robert Hettinga -
Tim May