As reported by The Albany Times Union and Capitol Confidential, a bill was introduced this week to the New York State Assembly by Assemblyman Phil Steck that proposes to amend New York State’s alcohol beverage laws. See Bill Supports Empire Wine Sales; Bill Would Curb SLA’s Power Over Out-Of-State Wine Shipments. The bill will reportedly stop…
Tag: Prohibition
Pennsylvania Attorney’s Wine Collection Seized and May be Destroyed by Government
Arthur Goldman, a Pennsylvania attorney, was recently accused of selling wine without a license. The story goes that Mr. Goldman privately procured high-end wines for friends and colleagues, selling the wine directly to multiple parties through his personal cellar as opposed to shipping the wine through Pennsylvania’s state-controlled liquor stores. (For the…
Revisiting the Volstead Act: The Power Behind the Eighteenth Amendment for Prohibition
Happy National Repeal Day! In honor of the repeal of the National Prohibition Act on December 5, 1933, we thought it appropriate to re-post an article originally written two years ago on the Volstead Act. See Revisiting the Volstead Act: The Power Behind the Eighteenth Amendment for Prohibition; see also Revisiting the Roads to…
Revisited: Granholm v. Heald and the Wine Industry
This blog entry was originally posted on August 7, 2010, five years after the Supreme Court decided a major case impacting the wine industry. The decision Granholm v. Heald remains important to the wine industry and provides great context for the types of legal issues the American wine industry faces on a…
Defining the Limits of Intoxicating Beverages for Non-Beverage Purposes: Prohibition’s Dumbra v. United States
As lovers of wine and the law, we all know about the renowned 2005 Supreme Court case Granholm v. Heald, as well as several recent wine lawsuits from the early and mid-2000s involving our precious beverage. In the upcoming weeks, On Reserve seeks to focus on additional cases that shaped…
Two Sisters Battle Winery-Brewery Law in Arizona
One of the unique aspects of the alcohol beverage industry is the clear and continual regulatory separation of different facets of the industry. For example, in the United States, laws known as tied house laws heavily regulate any form of vertical integration in the alcohol beverage industry. Generally speaking, tied…
Revisiting the Volstead Act: The Power Behind the Eighteenth Amendment for Prohibition
The Volstead Act: the legislative measure whose primary intent was to frame the execution of the Eighteenth Amendment, a curt and inexorable constitutional revision whose overtones still reside in contemporary American society even upon its repeal almost one hundred years ago. The legal supremacy of the Eighteenth Amendment, however, often overshadows…
Canadian Radio Host Terry David Mulligan Protests Outdated Prohibition-Era Wine Laws
To protest what he believes to be an outdated, Prohibition-era law, radio host Terry David Mulligan “carried a wooden case containing nine bottles of wine and one bottle of Penticton beer across the Alberta-B.C. border at noon on Friday.” (See Radio Host Mulligan Protest Provincial Liquor Laws.) Despite planning his illegal…
Canada Fights Outdated Prohibition-Era Wine Law
Canada is a country that struggles with outdated Prohibition-era wine laws, quite similar to those of the United States. As opposed to encountering restrictive laws with respect to interstate shipments, Canada grapples with laws from its own Prohibition time period that limit the importation of wine across the boundaries of…
Three-Tier Distribution, Direct Shipment, and Wine Politics in the New York Times
On Sunday, The New York Times published an excellent op-ed article tracing the history of the regulation of wine in the states and discussing the major contemporary problem relating to three-tier distribution in America. The article, which is brilliantly written by David White of Terroirist blog, is accessible at Wholesale…