Posted this on CellarTracker earlier today but wanted to enlist help/advice from here as well.
Hello Friends,
As recently as a year ago, virtually any retailer in the U.S. would gladly ship wine to Georgia even though it technically wasn’t legal. Fast forward to now and it appears UPS and FedEx have been coerced into acting as the enforcement arm for Georgia law, making most retailers skittish about shipping here.
Obviously, this pisses me off. I can’t think of anything other than a firearm I can’t legally have shipped directly to my house from another state. And at least with firearms, I can have an out-of-state retailer ship to a licensed retailer here. It’s insane not being able to get a legal product delivered across state lines.
In a libertarian fit of anger, I wrote to my state senator and have a sit-down with him in mid-November.
Now that I’ve secured the meeting, I need to get prepped for it. I’d like your help.
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I think I want to ask him to sponsor a bill that would allow out-of-state retailers to ship wine to Georgia. Is that the right ask?
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The central argument in my head, especially to a Republican, is around economic freedom. If a wine isn’t available here, I can’t have it. If it’s available here but 2X more expensive, I’m compelled to pay the higher price.
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Secondarily, over-regulation in this arena hurts consumers in the form of prices set by two distributors.
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Another argument is that having wine shipped means you’re buying expensive wine (to offset shipping costs) and this wouldn’t impact 99% of the mostly lower-end wines sold in-state.
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I’ve already done a bit of research and there are 14 states (plus DC) that have retailer direct shipping. Any sense for how these states got this through (or just never restricted it)?
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Any history I should be aware of that pre-dates my interest in wine?
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Anybody want to actively help me in this cause (either pre/during/post meeting)?
Thanks in advance,
Aaron