Are we really to believe the wholesalers when they tell us that they want to protect wine shipping rights for wineries and consumers? After they've have spent 20 years doing everything they can to stop consumers and wineries from using the direct to consumer channel?
Craig Wolf of the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers Association wants you to believe he's just out to protect shipping rights.
In a statement today, the WSWA said:
"The CARE Act does not overturn state laws allowing the direct shipment of wine by wineries or retailers. No provision of the CARE Act will change the laws on the books that allow for direct shipment of wines from wineries or retailers. Nor is there any provision in the bill that serves to restrict such legal shipments. In fact, direct shipping laws are afforded more protection from legal challenge under the CARE Act because the burden of proof is now on the entity challenging the law."Only one of three things can explain this out and out fabrication:
1. He's lying on purpose
2. He's being obtuse
3. He doesn't understand the law.
Today, if a state wants to pass a discriminatory ban on out of state shipping, and if it is challenged in court, the state must show that there are no other less discriminatory ways to achieve the goals sought by a ban on shipping by out of state wineries or retailers.
Under H.R. 5034, the state would merely have to DECLARE the ban has been put in place in order to achieve the states goals. They would no longer have to prove there are less discriminatory ways to achieve their goals.
The first thing that would happen upon passage of H.R. 5034 would the be introduction of legislation in a number of wholesaler-controlled states of legislation rescinding direct shipping. You can bet that Texas, Florida, Michigan, and Illinois would the first. AND ONCE PASSED, THERE WOULD BE NOTHING THAT CONSUMERS, WINERIES, RETAILERS, FREE THE GRAPES OR ANYONE ELSE COULD DO ABOUT IT.
Simply put, H.R. 5034 would result in the beginning of the end to direct shipment. Wineries and retailers can forever forget about the prospects of opening up more states for Self Distribution. And millions of consumers would need to get prepared to only have access to the wines that wholesalers want them to have access to.
H.R. 5034 is the most anti-consumer bill passed by congress since the 18th Amendment.
Why Craig Wolf and the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers Association would be so blatantly self serving and disingenuous in this recent statement of theirs is something to contemplate. But what you can be sure of is this:
Craig Wolf and America's alcohol wholesalers never have, do not now, and never will have the interests of the wineries, retailers, consumers or the American wine market foremost in their minds or behind their actions.
