https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/03/ftc-lawsuit-southern-glazer-wine-spirits-00161323
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It’s nice seeing the gov go after monopolies again.
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A gentleman from Southern, Mel Dick, was the first to highlight interstate shipping considering it a threat to the Southern monopoly. Lobbying and funding politicians helped them crack down on violators and resulted in fines and retailers reluctant in some cases to ship interstate.
So if you can’t ship wine from out of state, Southern is the culprit.
Southern also far from squeaky clean. A good summary from Tom Wark
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A great example of how the system works across the board these days. Special interest groups and lobbyists run the country lining their pockets at the expense of the citizens.
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It was interesting when I googled retailers who sold alcohol to underage minors, there were pages and pages of hits.
As Tom points out, despite the whining by the WSWA who are basically a tool of Southern, that shipping across state lines to minors is rampant, there is not one single instance that they have been able to cite which wasn’t instigated by a sting. Compare that to the pages I found from a simple google search.
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True, but sadly, I doubt anything substantial is done. The only thing to do with companies so large that they jeopardize egalitarianism, is break them up, and prevent them from happening in the first place. Nearly 0 chance that happens.
Whatever is done will either be something that has nearly no impact on their trajectory, or will help replace them with another company.
Sorry for my pessimism.
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You are speaking of Brick & Mortar stores selling to minors, yes?
And Tom is 100% right. There isn’t a single case of a minor buying alcohol online that went to court. They were all stings.
David Trone was running for US Senate in Maryland. Wonder what he was going to try to do? (he lost in the primary)
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I know my UPS and FedEx drivers really well. Work from home and a lot of non alcohol signature deliveries. We chat almost daily. I also live near a large university. The amount of deliveries they have to not deliver due to underage orders was utterly shocking to me. Cases of vodka, eg. I saw them. It is a major pita, tbh.
Does this validate the approach of Southern and its lackeys? No. But the issue is not as non existent as I believed two years ago before I had these convos
Only slightly related: Way back in the 1980’s, while in college, all the residents of my dorm pooled together and bought a shared order of 200+ cases of Old Milwaukee returnables straight from the brewery and picked it up at the St. Paul brewery. Most of us were under age but we picked it all up in pick up trucks. Our net cost was ~$4.69 per case if I remember right. I was not part of the sale transaction so i don’t know how they pulled it off but I received a few of the cases. I assume one person was old enough.
What was the drinking age? I was 17 (almost 18) and the bar owner looked at my license and said good enough. MADD changed things for the better.
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I’d like to think there was another way that wasn’t quite so zealous. The rest of the world gets away with 18 just fine, and without nearly the number of drunk driving accidents and fatalities that exist in the US.
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That’s because of COVID, and everyone learned a place they could order liquor online.
The irony is, they aren’t ordering wine. It’s booze.
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I was checking out at Costco on day, and a couple of teenagers in front of me were buying two cases of 16 oz. bottles of vanilla extract.
After they left, I was checking out and the cashier said those nice boys in front of me were organizing a giant bake sale.
I asked how much sugar, flour, eggs, etc they had purchased.
Cashier told me, “None.”
I just said, “70% alcohol. Nicely played!”
Then, we laughed about their genius!!!
In nature. alcohol will find its imbiber.
That’s disgusting.
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Pretty sad/stupid teenagers. High end vanilla extract can be 35% abv (not 70%, but 70 proof). But its $25 for a pint, and most teenagers would just pay someone’s older sibling to go into a local store and buy vodka. Takes a bit of work to make vanilla extract drinkable for even teens.
David Trone has been in the US House of Representatives for several years. Did he do anything there on this issue?
Yup-
Total Wine & More brought these efforts before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019,[28] who ruled for Total Wine & More in Tennessee Wine and Spirits Retailers Assn. v. Thomas, overturning the state’s residency requirement for obtaining a license to operate a liquor store and thereby allowing the company to expand into Tennessee.[29] In July 2023, The American Prospect reported that Total Wine & More sought to impede on a Federal Trade Commission investigation into alleged violations of the Robinson–Patman Act, which prohibits anti-competitive price discrimination, in alcohol markets.[23]
During the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, Retail Services and Systems, a company through which Trone formerly made campaign contributions, made $85,500 in campaign contributions toward Republican candidates. A Trone campaign spokesperson told Time that Trone had not been personally involved in contributions made by Retail Services and Systems since stepping down as Total Wine’s CEO in 2015, and pointed toward his combined $8.5 million in donations to the Democratic Party and pro-choice Democratic candidates.[30] Trone later told Jewish Insider that the contributions were necessary to “protect [the company] from attack”.[31]
During the 2022 general elections in Massachusetts and Colorado, the Trone brothers spent almost $3 million on media against Massachusetts Question 3, which would lower the number of alcohol beverage licenses retailers could have in the state,[32] and an additional $2 million financing a campaign to support Colorado Proposition 124, which would have allowed Total Wine & More to open an unlimited number of Colorado stores by 2037.[33] Both ballot initiatives were defeated by voters.[34][35]
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I’ve said in the past that this is a non-issue because basically no kids are trying. In hindsight, that isn’t rational. If there’s a chance to exploit an opportunity like that, it will happen. The question that needs to be asked is whether or not UPS and Fedex drivers are generally less capable of checking IDs than liquor store employees. I think they are actually generally more capable. Think about the types of people with part time cashier positions compared to the types of people who drive those trucks. Of course there will always be an occasional idiot throwing a TV over a fence, but the driving jobs are generally higher paying and require more responsibility. I’ve seen many liquor store cashiers who wouldn’t last one week delivering packages. So, I don’t think the argument that delivery increases the risk of minors getting alcohol is sound. I’m not saying you claimed the opposite; I’m just responding to the argument SGWS and their lobbyists make. I hope we can get away from the “this is rare so it doesn’t matter” type of counterargument.
What does this have to do with Southern?