With the filing of this lawsuit, there are now three lawsuits challenging discriminatory wine shipping laws, Michigan and Illinois as well as Missouri. The goal is to get a case in front of the Supreme Court and have that court declare that the same non-discrimination principles outlined in the 2005 Granholm decision apply to retailers as well as wineries.
Missouri had been a reciprocal state for wine retailer shipping, but earlier this year it rescinded its reciprocity law, making wine shipments from in-state retailers to Missouri residents legal while banning shipments from out of state wine retailers.
I hadn’t noticed this change until now. Figured I had placed a K&L order this year, doesn’t look like I have and MO is no longer a valid shipping state on their website. Stupid.
Not cool (cool that this is being challenged tho, and hopefully ends up all the way in the high courts!) - I have outstanding orders from a number of out-of-state retailers (some futures, some in-bottle)…didn’t realize this issue flipped recently in my state. Guess my wine is in purgatory indefinitely until this hopefully gets reversed…sigh…
The move in MO earlier to rescind their reciprocity law was a result of lawmakers being pressured to due to a lawsuit that had been filed that challenged that reciprocity provision. Granholm made clear the Supreme Court did not believe that reciprocity agreements were constitutional. My understanding is that wholesalers told lawmakers one way to get rid of that lawsuit was simply to rescind reciprocity.
I spoke with the sponsors of the bill. I told them, if it is rescinded and if your law then allows in-state retailers to ship, but not out of state retailers, another more potent lawsuit would be filed. They passed the bill anyway. A lawsuit was filed.
Currently there is a lawsuit in IL where it is being appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals. There is also a suit in Michigan that challenges that state’s discriminatory law. The goal is to get one or more of these lawsuits to the Supreme Court. That takes a while, but it is absolutely necessary to go this route.
To my knowledge, Total Wine rarely interferes with direct shipping laws.
Right now, what consumers can do is go to WineFreedom.org, sign up for alerts and be ready to reach out to lawmakers when they are alerted there is legislative action in their state.
I applaud them, but for those of us living in states where retailers can’t ship (in Georgia, they can’t even deliver to a customer across the street), their success will likely make no difference.
I understand how the Missouri law is discriminatory. How about Illinois and Michigan?