Direct Wine Shipping

[andrawes76]

Just checking to see if we put up an automated petition, who would sign it. This bill would say to your legislators, "I want to be able to shop and receive wines to my home." Under such a system, states can collect taxes on all wine shipments, adding tax revenues to the state.

Once you fill out the form and click send, it would send it to your congressman or congresswoman. Records would be kept confidential.

[dananne]

It would likely be signed by every regular on here that lives in a non-reciprocal state. Frankly, it'd probably be signed by everyone else just on principle, and I'd guess more than a few folks have already written their legislators. Anne and I sent individual letters to ours, but would sign any and all petitions on this issue.

[Kcwhippet]

PW,

My wife and I, individually, along with many, many other folks have sent letters to every state senator and state rep in MA a number of times over the course of many years. The result of all our efforts here has been essentially nil. The state (with the backing of the WSWA we're sure), in response to the US Supreme Court ruling, passed such a convoluted bill that nobody still would be able to ship to us. Now, here's the good part. The bill has been overturned by a US Circuit Court judge as a result of intervention by Family Winemakers of California, with assistance from the Coalition for Free Trade and Free the Grapes. The ruling allows us to legally receive wine from any winery that applies for (and receives) a direct shipping permit from the state. The ruling came down on December 18, and Martha Coakley (our state AG) has 30 days from then to file an appeal or we become a wide open state direct shipping wise. So, PW, the point of all this is to maybe point you toward checking out Family Winemakers, CFT and Free the Grapes to see how they're doing what you're after. Free the Grapes, in particular, has a facility for everyone interested to send a letter to all of their state's senators and reps urging them to allow direct shipping. We've done it each year at the opening of the year's legislative session (not that it helped much, since our legislators seemed more influenced by donations from WSWA members). Give them a look.

[winoweenie]

Add my state to the free shipping group. After 15 years as a devout member of free the grapes and doing as KC did by staying on our legilators patooties we were finally able to overcome the combined power of the Az wholesalers, the Baptist ministry, and MADD to get a workable and fair shipping law.WW