Post / Read Comments

I'm not sure how many wine consumers are really following the many year long battle between Costco and The Washington State Liquor Board for supremacy over who controls what supposedly free thinking members of a democratic society can consume as a beverage of choice. The latest decision by the 9th District Court of Appeals overturning the last ruling in favor of Costco has most likely, and I am basing this on quoted verbiage by State Lawyers, opened the door for excessive momentums of validation throughout the realm the Liquor Control Board currently governs. In other words... beware retaliation. We have noticed an escalation in raids, undercover entrapments, and the usual leveraging throughout our immediate region. Granted, the attention has been aimed at bars (we think), but it's hard to see all this as coincidental.

There is an enormous amount of spin being tossed about depending upon who is tossing and what side of the fence it's being tossed from. My basic feeling is that neither side ,no matter what is being touted as for the public good, cares a rip about the public good. Coscto wants to horde its wine in central distribution locations until they are ready at their leisure to allow the public to buy it. The State and Distribution Cartel want a total monopoly on legislated tax revenue and even worse... legislated profits. As far as Costco being the hero for the consumer, I can hear the old Who song playing in the background... "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". As a wine shop owner that has to claw tooth and nail through extraordinary dangerous minefields on the way to sustain a meager living, I have decided to offer some wants on our behalf as a Mom and Pop wine shop and hopefully other non-multi-chain-big-box-super-this-and-that-conglomerates behalves.

I would like to be able to purchase wine for resale from any entity that has it legally available, in state or out. Wouldn't it be swell if a client of mine who wants "wine A" that is being distributed by the lone legal distributor who refuses to sell it to me because I don't buy the rest of their lesser valued wine, could have me obtain it from whoever else had it on their shelves at whatever price I could negotiate? I could buy it from a wine shop in Seattle where it might just be collecting dust on the shelf, the owner would get a little above his cost and clear his shelf, I would sell it for less than my usual market up, but the customer would be happy to have what he or she was looking for. What a concept. I understand the need for business agreements between producer and distributor. I understand the need for exclusivity clauses. I understand the concept of fair compensation via commission. I do not understand legislated monopolies.

I would like the Liquor Control agents to courteously identify themselves upon entering my shop instead of wasting my time negotiating a potential entrapment of what could be perceived as a violation of compliance in front of my vendors and real customers. Agents are not required to identify themselves before entering... and never do.

I would like the State of Washington to pay us for using our time and equipment to police their laws. That would include labor hours spent logging out of state purchases via Internet time and equipment usage filling out forms for compliance so they don't have to.

I would like to be able to treat my inventory as belonging to to us, since we paid for it, and not just The State having us administer for them the movement of the product from producer to consumer without the benefits of consistent compensation, vacation pay, sick pay, and health care. Retirement bennies would be nice too. I cannot "give" a bottle of wine I purchased for my shelves to a good client, one that buys a lot of wine from me and pays sales tax on those purchases, to sample at home with his family to see if he would want more, which might mean he would buy several bottles, bottles that he would pay sales tax on. Sheez.

I would like to have a structure of Liquor laws that do not have us constantly looking in a most paranoid manner over our shoulders for fear there is an embedded agent disguised as a customer in our shop, so as to allow us to do what we thought our job was... to service our customers. As it currently stands:

• 
  
  If a child walks in with her mother and touches the pretty label, that can be construed as possession by a minor. I haven't been able to ascertain if this is deemed the equivalent of serving a minor and therefore I, as the one allowing it, could be hauled off to jail as a bartender would if they served a minor.
  
  I am not permitted to taste a wine prior to purchase while running the cash register so as to be able to properly inform my clients as to what they may be purchasing in terms of quality and value... we have no employees so its really hard not to break this law on a consistent basis. I was "caught" once doing this but because a legal vendor was "tasting" me on their product, I was not fined. But I was running the cash register. I'm soooo confused.
  
  We cannot sip wine with the doors locked, the open sign off, and after posted open hours within the confines of our shop. The State says if we are working on our books after hours and sipping wine, we could also be behind the cash register... even though we are closed. We cannot deny access to agents if they suspect we are doing that.
  
  The list goes on.
  
  The "Captain" of the our region says we can fight any perceived wrong through the courts at our expense, but that the agent in the field gets to make the call as to what is a violation.

I would like to accomplish all of this without an eighth year legal fight and several million dollars.

Labels: Other Observations