"When
Michigan has the highest unemployment in the country, how can you support
legislation that will decimate a growing agricultural industry like
Michigan's wineries?"
Dear Michigan State House
Representative:
It has come to our attention that you are a sponsor of HB4959, a bill that
stops all wine shipping by wineries within the State and demands that every
bottle of wine sold in the State go through a wholesaler. We would like you
to change your mind. When Michigan has the highest unemployment in the
country, how can you support legislation that will decimate a growing
agricultural industry like Michigan's wineries?
Michigan wineries represent a $75 million business. If you give the wineries
the right to enlarge their business by allowing them to ship to consumers in
other states, that business and the taxes it generates will grow. The wine
industry in Michigan also
attracts
about one million tourists each year, generating $17 million annually. Is it
your intent to damage Michigan's tourist industry at a time when this State
needs to generate as much revenue as possible?
Although it may be hard for you to give up the support you have received
from the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers, you also represent many people
who do not have the resources that wholesaler's $32 billion cartel can
generate.
While many states look to the future, Michigan is looking to the past. If
this bill passes, it will further entrench the Michigan state-sanctioned
monopoly in wine wholesaling, decimate 40 family-owned wineries, and
eliminate the employment and tax base those wineries represent.
HB4959 represents a huge step backward for Michigan when 29 others states
(most recently Texas and Connecticut) have decided to enact regulated
direct-to-consumer wine shipments.
Michigan's wholesalers have issued bogus surveys with unsubstantiated
conclusions about underage access, even though The U.S. Supreme Court gave
this argument no credibility and the Federal Trade Commission's thorough
survey of state alcohol regulators in 11 legal direct shipping states found
"no evidence suggesting direct shipping increases underage access."
The intent of the wholesalers is to deflect attention from their cartel's
real motivation of economic protectionism.
Eleanor and Ray Heald
June 17, 2005
Reprinted by permission
Copyright © 2005 Wine Consumers Across
Michigan
Legally, we're
WineCAM LLC -- a Michigan Limited Liability Company
