Time I learned more about Ohio's silly ways in this regard.  Let's start with a real gem:

 

 

State uncorks law limiting wine sales

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Aaron Marshall

Plain Dealer Bureau

Columbus- Jack West likes a nice bottle of California wine now and then. For the last few years, the Chagrin Falls man has belonged to the Merryvale Vineyards' wine club, which ships him four bottles every couple of months.

 

But beginning Monday, because of a new state law lobbied for by the state's powerful Wholesale Beer and Wine Association, West's shipments will stop. And so will deliveries for thousands of other Ohioans who order wine from out of state.

 

Rest of article at Cleveland.com [link unknown]

The article is fundamentally mistaken about one thing.  Ohio law does not allow wholesalers to mark up to 33%.  It requires that they mark up no lower than 33%.  Most wine wholesalers work on gross margins of 30-40 percent which means that they are marking up at or above 50% on their "laid in costs" which are the cost of the product, the cost to ship it to Ohio and any Ohio excise taxes.

 

I worked on the supplier side for several years, and trust me.  The wineries and importers have nothing but scorn for wine wholesalers.  They are lazy parasites fixated solely on "passing through" wine that has already been sold for them--either through high scores from the wine critics or national and regional contracts created by the winery/importer themselves.  They add nowhere near the value to the distribution chain that they add in cost to the consumer.

 

Unfortunately, they are still legally protected by the repeal amendment which mandates a legal wholesale tier.  In other words, they don't have to justify their business or economic existence nor are subject to market efficiencies because the law says that a winery can't sell directly to Kroger or the neighborhood wine shop (regardless of any demand or logistical viability) but rather is forced to pass the wine through a wholesaler.

 

My guess is that the Ohio wineries were simply bought off by a couple of the big wholesalers.  They were promised increased attention and sales in exchange for their support of this bill.

 

Don't worry though.  This is all about to change.  COSTCO has taken the entire notion of a legally mandated wholesale tier to federal court.  In federal district court in Washington, they won a sweeping decision in which the presiding judge went further than COSTCO was asked and found the wholesale system to be patently unconstitutional.  The case now goes to the 9th circuit and eventually the Supreme Court.  Within 5 years, there will not be a legally required wholesale tier in selling wine, over half the wine sold in America will go straight from the winery/importer to the store or restaurant, cutting out the wholesalers' bloated profit margins and resulting in great benefits to wineries, retailers and consumers. 

 

The Plain Dealer's wine writer was always harping on the state minimum markups as adding cost to the consumer.  What they add is minimal if anything. If one really wants to look out for the consumer and lower prices end the three tier system.  It's high time that the wholesalers little racket come to end.  Deep down inside they know that there's no economic justification for passing a majority of wine through their warehouses, and with the legal requirement to do so removed expect 2/3 of these parasites to take a dirt nap in the next 5 years. :clap:

 

 

Another example of our politicians pandering to special interests at the expense of the consumer.  Just another step closer to sending Ohio back to the stone age.

 

"It was not supposed to apply to consumers," Rep. Matthew Dolan, a Russell Township Republican and chairman of the House Finance Committee, said Tuesday. "When it came back from the Senate, I probably didn't read it as closely as I should have."

 

 

I also read this in the paper and was amazed at that statement.  What else isn't this guy reading as close as he should have?

I thought this was going to be something about how the liquor laws dont allow checkout people to be underage and run a sixpack over a scanner.

 

So here i am in line at the supermarket and the cheker is too young to scan the beer, so she has to call someone over to do this.

 

I guess she would be somehow corrupted to actually run the beer over the scanner, or ring-up the beer on a cash register back when they had those. 

 

But then they have those drive throughts....cars and alchohol in very close proximity.

 

 

 

 

I thought this was going to be something about how the liquor laws dont allow checkout people to be underage and run a sixpack over a scanner.

 

So here i am in line at the supermarket and the cheker is too young to scan the beer, so she has to call someone over to do this.

 

I guess she would be somehow corrupted to actually run the beer over the scanner, or ring-up the beer on a cash register back when they had those. 

 

But then they have those drive throughts....cars and alchohol in very close proximity.

 

 

Sadly, that's a much more rational law than the 3-tier system.  I understand the former because of the chance that underage checkout workers might knowingly sell beer to his/her underage friends.

 

I've yet to hear such a logical reason as to why that six pack should be legally forced to pass through a local wholesaler's warehouse before reaching the store shelves, with an additional 30-40% of cost added along the way.