Retailers Beware

Wine Pimps
1

TABC has issued this press release as of Friday June 3. They are parternering with FedEx & UPS to make sure retailers do not ship wine into TX

2

Carrie,

Thanks for posting this. I’m still not clear on what the consequences would be for retailers who continue to ship into the State - any idea?

3

Richard,
Retailers that haven’t received a Cease & Desist letter will and if they continue to ship TABC will contact the ABC in their state, in turn they could lose their liquor license. At least that’s the way I understand it

4

And the shipping states ABC Should tell the TABC to politely go screw themselves, since the retailer didn’t violate any laws in their own state, and Texas has NO legal jurisdiction. Unfortunately, that’s not how I expect to react.

5

Let’s face it, a retailer isn’t going to risk hundreds of dollars’ worth of product being confiscated to challenge the law, so that is incentive enough to stop shipping even before the threat of license exposure.

However, I’d be interested if somebody would want to start shipping a TX customer a bottle of Sutter Home twice a week to see what happens…

6

I hear what you’re saying but I’m skeptical. The Texas authorities can’t do anything to a California retailer and my guess is that the California ABC doesn’t have the staff, time or interest to pursue it, if only because the retailer won’t have broken any California laws.

I suppose UPS/FedEx could somehow “red-tag” all shipments into the State of Texas from their customers who routinely ship wine, but then they’d have to find the package, segregate it and open it up to see if it contained something illegal. Even if it could be done thats a lot of work that wouldn’t be in their best business interests - they’d be spending extra time and money and reducing their revenue.

7

Good timing. Well thats it. I am not shipping any wine into Texas until at November now.

8

This is serious stuff. When we had our shop I made ONE shipment to Vermont and got a Cease & Desist letter within 60 days. The only way this could have happened was with FedEx’s cooperation. I was told I had to pay $300.00 for a state license and had to pay tax to the state. ( I seem to recall something to the effect that I was not allowed to pass along the tax to the buyer, but I don’t see that now when I Google the Vermont law.)