My Wine Education

Sinners Tax: PASSED

Did you write your congressman? As a non-Kentuckian, did you write our Kentucky legislators as a concerned shopper?

Sigh. Even if you did, apparently they didn't listen. The Alcohol Tax increase - 6% - was passed by the House and then this morning, the Senate. Now it just goes to Gov Beshear who already thinks it's a jolly good idea.

Here's the deal folks - Ky already has one of the highest alcohol taxes in the country. We pay 53% in taxes every time we buy a bottle of wine or a bottle of bourbon or beer. Now that number has been hiked to 59% and prices are going to increase.

Effects? Well, less people will cross from Ohio to buy alcohol over here. The liquor stores will feel the pain, but so will the restaurants, gas stations, and other small businesses that benefit from the influx of people.

Oh, but the 90 dry counties in Kentucky get to benefit from this tax even though they won't be feeling any of the pain.

Sorry folks, but my eloquence deserts me here. Kentucky pisses me off. I tried. I wrote every Representative and Senator. I heard back from only one. If you ask me, this is a bit of a Justice FAIL.

Ed. Note: I've updated the post to note that Kentucky currently has one of the highest tax rates in the country. I should not, by the way, have believed everything I read. ;-) Thanks to Kevin Keith for the clarification in the comments below.

Taxing the Sinners: HB 166

I try to keep most politics out of the blog, but occasionally there are things that directly affect not just our friends in the wine industry, but those of us buying the wine.

We all enjoy buying wine in Kentucky, as the prices certainly can't be beat. Well, HB 166 proposes raising the liquor tax by 6%, to an overall total of 17%.  A distributor told me today that right now, before this tax increase, we are already paying 53% in taxes - whether on a bottle of wine or a bottle of beer. 53% !  That's crazy!  In fact, it's one of the highest in the nation. So imagine adding another 6% on to that. In order to make money, our favorite retailers are going to have to raise prices.

Take that one step further - a tax increase like this is going to greatly hurt all of our favorite retailers here in Northern Kentucky. Border stores, like those here and in Louisville, will feel the pain of having to raise prices. It's bad enough that everyone is being forced to raise prices here and there because the dollar is bad and imports are now more expensive. Now we're going force them to raise prices from within the state?

I've long known Kentucky's wine and liquor laws were a bit backwards and, in many cases, appear to be left over from Prohibition. Heaven knows, it's next to impossible to ship anything in or out of this state. This is just one more example of hurting ourselves and employing the 1930s-era mentality of taxing the sinners.

(Image Credit)

 Now, it's doubly aggravating because of the ridiculous dry counties, "moist" cities in our state. I first encountered this phenomenon when I went to college in a "moist" city in a dry county surrounded by other dry counties. In fact, only 30 of the state's 120 counties are wet. There are 18 "moist" cities in dry counties.

Let's look at coal for a minute. We don't mine coal here in Northern Ky, but we don't see the money from the coal taxes either. About half of the money from coal taxes stay in the counties that mine the coal. Do the work, reap the benefits. Representative Steve Riggs believes it should work this way with alcohol taxes as well. Last year, alcohol taxes provided $115 million in state revenue. Riggs has proposed an amendment to HB 166 that keeps the money from the tax increase in the wet counties. After all, if HB 166 passes - without the amendment - then those dry counties reap the benefits from the money we're all spending.

Of course, ideally, the bill won't pass at all. Maybe the dry counties will be so upset by the amendment that they'll vote against the bill. My fear is that they'll get rid of the amendment, pass the bill, and the dry counties will reap the benefits of my - and your - dollars. We don't want the bill to pass in any form.

There are so many other ways to raise money other than taxing something that is a) already overtaxed,  b) brings in business from neighboring states, and c) singles out certain people within the state.

Hey, I know! Why don't we build a casino in one of the buildings Columbia Sussex has bought, waiting for a casino. We're constantly losing that money to Indiana. Instead of continuing to tax the rest of us, how about finally passing a casino bill and making money that way.

I'm not really cheering on 59% in taxes on a bottle of $14 wine.

Feel free to write our local congressmen. Happily you can just send them an email - I did. You can also view the letter from Liquor Direct's Kevin Keith. Finally, you can just call our legislature at 1-800-372-7181. My own letter is after the jump.

Sal.Santoro@lrc.ky.gov

Thomas.Kerr@lrc.ky.gov

Arnold.Simpson@lrc.ky.gov

Joe.Fischer@lrc.ky.gov

alecia.webb-edgington@lrc.ky.gov

Adam.Koenig@lrc.ky.gov

Jack.Westwood@lrc.ky.gov

Wine in Ky Groceries?

I'm always getting forwards and online petitions from folks. I tend to just delete them.

But one of them caught my eye today, as I'm sure my friend who sent it intended. I verified it before publishing (as all good bloggers do), so now I'm sharing.

For a while, I've been following the story of trying to get wine into Ky grocery stores, similar to Ohio. Having lived in Ohio for a good deal of time, I was accustomed to this. When I moved to Ky, I learned that it's sort of a pain to go put all my groceries in the car, esp in the summer heat, and run back to the separate liquor store to buy wine. My methods changed - I started shopping at the larger stores, such as Party Town and Party Source, and making trips specifically geared towards wine and liquor.

As you can read in this article from the Louisville Courier-Journal, these types of stores aren't at all happy with the bill. Based on my personal example, I understand why. It would definitely hurt their business. However, I know that I can always get better prices at Party Source than I can the Kroger Liquor Store. I also know that Liquor Direct, Party Town, and Party Source all have much better and broader selections in just about everything than my local Kroger liquor store. So why go to Kroger?

The argument being used by the Food & Wine Coalition is a bit weak. They say it will help sell Ky Wines. I'm not so sure about that and I think they need to change their tact. I admit that in stores like Remke, where there is a Kentucky-Proud area of the store with local products, Ky wine would get a nice feature. But I can't exactly see that happening in Kroger or other larger chain stores.

But if this bill does past, grocery stores would get a big boost. Women are the fastest growing segment of the wine-buying market. Who does most of the grocery shopping in a family? Right, the girls. Grocery stores know that gearing the right wines towards women in their store is a boon - once you're buying dinner, why not pick up a bottle of that Mad Housewife Cab to go with your steak?

There are other reasons, but I suspect that's at the heart of it.

For me, well, it would occasionally just be convenient to drive right down the street and still pay less than the high prices usually (but not always) found at the local Cork and Bottle.

More information on how you can help make this happen is after the jump.

Write Your Local Congressman

Honestly, I spend a lot of time beating my head against the wall because of our ridiculous wine shipping laws in the tri-state area. It's like Prohibition all over again - in the name of commerce. I first posted an alert on this particular issue back in June, when the folks at Kinkead Ridge brought it to my attention.

Harmony Hill, one of our favorite Ohio wineries, is no longer shipping wine to consumers in any state due to Ohio's new shipping laws. Post your comments and support for Harmony Hill. I find it sad that Ohio's laws are not only hurting consumers, but hurting small winemakers in its own state.

UPDATE: Nancy Bentley, from Kinkead Ridge, posted information in the comments section of this post on how to contact your congresspeople. She also mentioned that Kinkead Ridge has stopped shipping wine as well.

Here is the letter from Harmony Hill:

Dear Friends of Harmony. As of Monday, October 1, Harmony Hill Vineyards & Estate Winery will no longer ship wine to consumers, in ANY State. This regretful decision is based on a new law passed by our legislators that bans direct shipment of out-of-state wine to Ohio consumers from wineries that produce more than 150,000 gallons. That, alone, would not be an issue (Harmony Hill produces less than 3000 gallons) except that the law limits the purchase per household to no more than 24 cases. Sec. 4303.233. No family household shall purchase more than twenty- four cases of nine-liter bottles of wine in one year.

Our fear is the winery's liability for shipping that illegal 25th case to an Ohio household, since we are not able to track how much wine each household has already purchased.

I could easily turn this into a five page email touting my opinions of how this could have possibly happened in this day and age, but instead ask that you check the "Legislative Alert" link on our web site to see how many of Ohio citizens' rights have been rescinded by this ridiculous legislation. I will only share one letter from a loyal Harmony Hill customer who summarizes these limitations very well, and ask that you visit our Legislative Alert page and form your own opinions based on what others around the country are stating.

With regrets,
Bill & Patti

Ohio Wine Laws - Legislative Alerts

I know I'm usually a one-post-per-day type of gal. But I just got an email worthy of a second post for the day. Ron & Nancy of Kinkead Ridge have given me permission to repost their email here. Take a minute to digest it:

We have been working diligently to insure Ohio has a fair and constitutional solution to the direct shipping issue.
Last Tuesday June 5th, over the objections of our Senator Tom Niehaus and Senate Finance Chair Carey, Senate President Harris attached a wine amendment to the budget bill.

The amendment, if implemented, will eliminate your ability to order wine from medium and large wineries. Orders from small wineries are permitted, but with many "only in Ohio" restrictions and such bureaucratic excess that in fact little wine will likely be shipped.

The bill's amendment has been reviewed by WineAmerica, a national winery trade organization. We were told that at least some of their recommendations had been implemented. They were not.

The budget bill (HB119) is due to be voted on Wednesday the 13th of June. After that it will go to conference where changes can be made.

Now is the time to make your views known to your elected representatives. At a minimum, all of WineAmerica's recommendations should be inserted into the amendment in conference. At best, the amendment should be pulled and submitted as standard legislation.

The wholesalers, a few Ohio wineries, and the Senate President have demonstrated a disregard for wine consumers and the legislative process which should not go unchallenged.

Your Senators can be contacted using the information here.

It's not just happening in Ohio. There are wine laws in Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky, just to name a few, that do not favor the consumer. We actually had a wine club in California drop us last year because of our state. It's getting harder to get the wines you want, from the the places you want, at the prices you want to pay.

Need more information for your own state? Check out FreetheGrapes.org and Wine America.