In which government is, once again, the root of the problem

[unixronin]

I went to look at Rocky Mountain Meadery this morning, which it turns out has renamed itself Meadery of the Rockies since I last bought mead from them.  It turns out that, thanks to your tax dollars at work, Rocky Mountain Meadery — or Meadery of the Rockies — no longer ships mead interstate.

Why?

In 2005, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed its long standing position that state laws violate the Commerce Clause if they mandate "differential treatment of in-state and out-of-state economic interests that benefit the former and burden the latter."  This rule prohibits states from permitting in-state wineries to ship wine in-state while that state prohibits out-of-state wineries from shipping wine into the state.  Consequently, states are now requiring wineries to obtain licenses to ship within and into their states.  For us to purchase 20 or more licenses, plus incur the additional cost of paper work, tax compliance, and monthly reports would be prohibitive.  Therefore, we have decided not to ship wine interstate at the present time.

So, yet another active producer of goods that has had to cut back its business, and its contribution to the overall economy, because it can no longer afford the cost of compliance with government edicts.

Personally, I think we've had about all the government we can stand.

(As for our mead supply, it turns out Redstone Meadery does ship interstate, and has way cool bottles to boot.)

Comments

[merlinpendragon]

Redstone Meadery does not ship to Kansas, nor do they have a distributor in this state. Grrrr......

[unixronin]

As you should see above, hugh_mannity pointed me at B. Nektar, which ships to all states via WineBuys.