Wine Ploy: Bad Bouquet
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So-called fair trade laws were nullified by the courts in the 1970s because they were anything but fair. These measures allowed a manufacturer to set retail prices so that, say, Cost Plus could not offer the product cheaper than a department store. Fair trade laws were special-interest legislation of the worst sort. The court rulings were a blow for the consumer and free markets.
But special interests and influential lobbyists pushed through a new series of laws that brought back a form of trade restriction. One gave distillers the power to designate an exclusive distributor, which would be the only firm allowed to sell that brand of whiskey, vodka or other spirit to retailers in the state. The goal: keep prices high and limit or avoid competition.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. May 13, 2002 For The Record
Los Angeles Times Monday May 13, 2002 Home Edition California Part B Page 10 Editorial Writers Desk 2 inches; 45 words Type of Material: Correction
Winery fund-raiser-An editorial Friday reported that the Kunde Estate Winery in Sonoma Valley was scheduled to host a fund-raiser for Assembly Majority Leader Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles) May 21. It was. However, Kunde President Don Chase advised customers in a letter Wednesday that he was canceling the event.
In 1985, a bid to extend this rule to wine and champagne whipped through the Legislature--the skids greased with campaign contributions to key lawmakers--but then-Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed it, denouncing it for what it was, an affront to the consumer.
But special interests never give up. The wine bill has been reincarnated in the form of AB 1922, authored by Assembly Majority Leader Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles), apparently with the blessing of Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City). Amazingly, on April 22 this anti-consumer bill zipped through the Assembly Government Organization Committee on a vote of 18 to 1.
The next stop is the Assembly Appropriations Committee, whose members we hope will put a quick end to this potential rip-off.
Firebaugh’s bill is supported by the Wine Institute, a trade association whose membership includes many of the state’s big wineries, and by a British-owned firm that owns several big California wineries and is a major California importer of wines from France and elsewhere. The sponsors say the law is needed to better enforce state alcoholic beverage control laws, to prevent the distribution of tainted wines and to create an “audit trail” for enforcement and collection of taxes.
Its real purpose is to keep small and specialty retailers, restaurants and discount stores from importing wines directly from France and offering them at lower prices.
A statement from Robert M. Parker Jr., respected editor of the Wine Advocate, says all lawmakers need to know about AB 1922: “This is the latest chapter in the scandalous attempt by America’s largest wholesalers and importers to gain a monopoly over U.S. wine sales.... Now they’re after California, perhaps the last free wine market in America. Californians should be outraged.”
Footnote: A wine tasting and dinner will be held May 21 at Kunde Estate Winery in Sonoma Valley. Checks in the amount of $5,000 for a couple or $10,000 for a sponsor should be made out to the Friends of Marco Antonio Firebaugh, says the invitation. The invitation also notes that the committee is not bound by the new state law limiting individual campaign contributions to legislators to $3,000.
Even with term limits, some things never change.