MESSAGE TO ABC NEWS

[Jerry D Mead]

Peter Jennings provided one of the more balanced reports on the Orrin Hatch hearings regarding the internet wine sales story, but your news guys have still been overly influenced by a powerful senator from Mormon Utah (which sees wine as a sin not a beverage), anti-alcohol fanatic organizations such as MADD (no longer just about keeping drunks off the road..notice their slogans are now anti-drinking, not anti-drunk) and a wholesale monopoly fighting to hold onto the only such special exception to our anti-trust laws.Here's a couple of questions for your reporters to ask:Ask for some examples of minors caught buying licensed beverages via the Internet...that are not a part of a sting involving the assistance of an adult. I've been trying to get the opponents of direct shipping to come with one for 20 years...no luck so far. When a kid wants a case of Bud for Friday night's beer bash, he ain't gonna order it via the Internet, pay up to $35 extra for delivery, have a credit card, lie about his age, and feel safe that no adult will be present to intercept his shipment or that the driver will insist on i.d. Internet sales to minors is just not a reality.

And as regards that 1997 sting you showed, that was set up by a former attorney general (Vacco) who was fronting for a special interest group called ARAA, which is 100% financed by WSWA (the wholesaler's trade assoc.) And Vacco forgot to mention when screaming about interstate shipping, that INTRASTATE shipping has been legal in New York for eons with no apparent problems. Ditto for California, with "intrastate" shipments legal for more than 50 years with virtually no problems involving minors. Now why is it that a shipment from Rochester to NYC, or San FRancisco to Los Angeles, is legal and not a threat to minors, but one from Newark to NYC, or Phoenix to Palm Springs, is illegal and a horrible danger for youth?

This issue is not about minors. This issue is not about taxes (the wineries are willing to pay them, even though other mail order businesses do not). This issue is about maintaining the monopoly of the three or four wholesalers in each state, which take a 25% or more slice out of every bottle of wine, beer and spirits sold. Minors and taxes are red herrings used by a few fat cats to screw consumers once again.

Jerry D. Mead
Editor & Publisher
The Wine Trader magazine
Nationally syndicated columnist, Mead On Wine
(800) 845-9463
E-mail: winetrader@aol.com