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Monday, April 14, 2008

Ind. Law - "Little progress with state's wine laws"

Dan and Krista Stockman, of the excellent Saturday wine column, "Uncorked," in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, wrote on the 12th:

It could have been a lot worse.

For wine lovers who were hoping the Indiana General Assembly would make life easier for those who want to buy wine online and have it delivered to their homes, there was little, if any progress.

For wineries both inside and outside the state who were hoping the General Assembly would reduce the amount of paperwork involved, there was no progress at all.

But for Indiana wineries who feared a repeat of last year – when they came within a vote of being put out of business entirely thanks to the wholesalers and their lobbyists and the representatives who shill for them – it was a great sigh of relief because for the most part, almost nothing changed.

Let’s get to the bad news first.

The General Assembly finally defined grocery stores and convenience stores. The implication for wine lovers is that in cities at or beyond their limits for the number of retail alcohol licenses, stores such as Wine Time and Wine Styles have been able to open by being licensed as a grocery store because they also sell some food items. Wine Time, for example, carries a variety of cheeses – many you would have difficulty finding anywhere else – crackers and even a gallon of milk. While it appears such stores will be able to stay open, they won’t be able to open new locations – a big blow to Wine Styles, which is a national franchise.

Wine Time owner Jeff Armstrong said Indiana is anything but business-friendly compared with other states when it comes to wine stores. Because he’s licensed as a grocery store, for example, to have a wine tasting, he has to have the tasting outside the building and have the mayor and police chief sign off on the event.

“It’s interesting how oppressive and backwards Indiana is as far as wine shops,” Armstrong said.

His current license expires in October. The state says he’ll be grandfathered in, but he’s hoping the changes don’t cause problems for him later on, and we hope so, too. Both Wine Time and Wine Styles offer wines the major stores don’t sell and both provide expertise and customer service that can’t be beat.

The other bad news is what didn’t happen – the state had a chance to ease direct-shipping restrictions but did not.

Currently, the law states that wineries can ship wine directly to customers only if they have first bought wine face-to-face at the winery. That part of the law was struck down by a federal court, but it’s still on the books even though it cannot be enforced. Instead, the state requires customers to first send a photocopy of their driver’s license and sign an affidavit that they are at least 21 before the winery can ship the wine. And wine stores outside the state, such as Sam’s Wine & Spirits in Chicago, are still not allowed to ship to Indiana consumers at all.

That’s the bad news. But the legislature did do a few good things, too.

It increased the size limits on wineries that can ship directly to consumers, although other restrictions remain. It spelled out in the law that an instructor teaching a college course on wine appreciation can serve wine as part of the course without having to get a permit, allowed the sale of packaged alcohol on New Year’s Day, and provided progressively harsher penalties for repeat offenders who sell alcohol to minors.

We appreciate the state penalizing those who do nothing to prevent alcohol sales to minors, especially since selling to minors is often an excuse used in limiting or prohibiting Internet sales. But the current requirement of providing a photocopy of an ID does nothing more to prevent abuses than are already in place. Kids are not going to be ordering wine from wineries – that has never been a problem in any state that has allowed shipping. And even if they were going to do it, requiring a photocopied ID first is certainly not going to get in their way.

So the legislature made minor improvements but did nothing to solve the major problems Hoosier wine lovers currently face. But at least they didn’t make things any worse.

Cheers!

For more on wine shipping, see this ILB list.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 14, 2008 12:03 PM
Posted to Indiana Law