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May 17, 2005
Drink Up!
California lobbyists are making the world safe again for mail-order wine.
Hindered for years by knuckle-dragging morons who said that the availability of wine via mail made it accessible to kids, the California Vintner's lobby has finally overturned the laws in Florida, New York, Massachusetts and Michigan. Hurrah, the wine industry in CA can sell to parched New Yorkers! Twenty-two other states yet to fall.
Actually, much as we applaud California's ability to ignore real issues and put political muscle behind (now read this using your best Schwarzenegger impression) special interests, we have to say there was something to the whole kids getting wine through the mail claim.
The real value of the old law is that it protected affluent kids with good taste. We're talking about teens who would go the extra mile (or rather pay the extra Fed Ex charges) and wait a day or two to acquire a nice bottle of 2003 Robert Biale Zinfandel Grande at only $38.95, instead of hangin outside the Circle K waiting for some messed-up Gulf War vet who'll buy them a sixer of tall malts. We need to protect those kids with some culinary class, because they're in short supply. There are plenty of suds soppers, future members of the dirty t-shirt La-Z-Boy crowd, even given current freeway mortality rates. Something about that culture just seems to breed out of control.
In any case, drink up! The rest of us need the room.
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