NY Wine Monopoly In Court

The New York Post reports:

At issue legally is a clash between the 21st Amendment, which gives states the right to regulate alcohol distribution, and the Commerce Clause, which prohibits states from discriminating against out-of-state competitors. Which explains the alignment of forces: small wineries such as Swedenburg's, represented by the free-market Institute for Justice, versus wholesalers fighting to hold onto a highly lucrative monopoly.

A former Foreign Service officer whose mom-and-pop winery handles everything from the grape-growing through the bottling and distribution, Swedenburg reports that about 90 percent of her prize-winning wines are sold to visitors, half of whom live out of state. Technically, if they are from New York, even if they buy a bottle in person and bring it home themselves, they're still committing a crime.

Unfortunately, while the advance of the Internet makes a small, family-run winery economically feasible, just under half the states forbid such sales and five make it a felony.

I wish them all the best in this fight.

I still remember how I felt the first time we brought some US wine back into Canada (declaring the purchase like idiots good citizens) and having to pay the LCBO mark-up on top of duty and tax. We barely had enough cash to cover it — in those benighted days, the government didn't accept other forms of payment.

Let me say that it suddenly brought into focus just why some folks get into smuggling.