sell wines

[hotwine]

Welcome to the board, Hector. Sorry to bring you bad news, but you're in for huge headaches trying to start such a business. Why? Because each state has different laws regarding interstate shipping of alcoholic beverages. It's also against federal law to ship it through the U.S. mail. And UPS has a practice of destroying any packages that they can identify as containing wine, to avoid tripping over state laws. Your own state may have its own set of arcane rules for storage, handling and ground transport, such as requirements for licensed and bonded vehicles, drivers and warehouses which cannot be used for any other purpose (those are Texas requirements); and each license/bond must be renewed annually at considerable expense. You would need expert legal advice to ensure your compliance with the laws of each state. That can also get very expensive.

If you really want to give it a try, suggest you contact your state's alcoholic beverage control commission, an office of your state government. It goes by different names from one state to another, but it's the office charged by state government to enforce compliance with state laws regarding importation, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. Tell them what kind of business you want to establish, and ask them to send you a packet of information on state requirements.

[This message has been edited by hotwine (edited 10-31-2002).]