Category: Latest News

The Ottawa based effort to reform Canada\’s inter-provincial shipping laws has been gaining momentum with positive press coverage from across the country including, as previously reported, endorsement from the Globe & Mail and, now, from many other media sources. See the FreeMyGrapes.ca web site for details on the effort and their Facebook page for updates on the continuing publicity.

The current campaign is a call for a solution at the federal level to create a personal use exemption such that consumers can order wine from other provinces without breaking the law (as is now the case). I have just returned from the Direct to Consumer symposium in Santa Rosa, CA where the American approach was summarized. The U.S. now has a patchwork system with different regulations for wine shipping in EVERY state. As a result, wineries are faced with a nightmarish regulatory structure and must resort to specialized third party compliance businesses to ensure compliance (ShipCompliant is the leader). However, the current proposal for Canada would create a much better solution. If the problem were fixed at the federal level with a national personal use exemption – then wineries would have one national standard which would be easy to understand and to comply with.

As a friend in Napa told me … Canada will have a better wine shipping system than the U.S. if the current proposal is successful. Please continue to support this initiative. These issues will be covered in more detail at the upcoming Wine Law in British Columbia conference on March 29, 2011 (50% discount on tuition for the wine industry!).

A draft SFU report on the state of the BC wine industry (The Wine Industry in British Columbia: A Closed Wine But Ready for Harvest – PDF) raises questions about the long term health of the industry by citing multiple areas where the industry may be vulnerable: market saturation, cost of land and inputs, lack of alternative markets, heavy reliance on tourism, dependence on regulatory protection, difficulties in learning how to export, lack of coordination, poor coordination of supply chains, and lack of innovation. This report is likely to provide fodder for a lively discussion about these issues. I\’ll comment more on the regulatory issues once I have had a chance to digest the whole analysis. Incidentally, this website is cited as a reference in one part of the report although I haven\’t spoken with its author about any of the covered issues yet.

The second conference on Wine Law in British Columbia is now set for Tuesday March 29, 2011 in Vancouver, immediately prior to the commencement of the Vancouver Playhouse Wine Festival Trade Days events on Wednesday. There is a great lineup of topics covering the economics of wine production in BC, interprovincial shipping laws, business partner relationships, tied house reform, host liability, social media and issues related to starting or operating a winery. The faculty includes numerous leading lawyers as well as prominent wine industry figures such as David Enns (Laughing Stock), Toby Frisk (Farm Credit Canada), Josie Tyabji (chair of the BC Wine Institute), Barry Bieller (LCLB), Sandra Oldfield (Tinhorn Creek), Christine Coletta (Haywire, Coletta & Associates, BC Grapegrowers) and Michael Bartier (Road 13). The full schedule and agenda is here: Wine Law in British Columbia. The regular tuition for this program is $595. However, those employed in the wine industry can register with a 50% discount: please contact the conference organizer, Law Seminars International, directly in order to register at the discounted rate. The conference is presented this year in conjunction with the Vancouver Playhouse Wine Festival.

As everyone knows, both of BC\’s major political parties now have leadership races well underway. As far as I am aware, none of the leadership candidates have yet taken policy positions on the modernization of BC\’s archaic wine and liquor laws. In my view, BC\’s current liquor distribution systems is in desperate need of wide ranging reform: see this summary of BC\’s outdated laws and policies to see why. Regrettably, previous governments have paid insufficient attention to these issues and we are still lumbered with a system which needs multiple fixes. Hopefully, these issues will become part of the policy debates that relate to the leadership races. I look forward to seeing the candidates\’ positions on wine and liquor law reform. I urge readers to get involved in the political process and to make this reform into an important political issue.

The lead editorial in today\’s Globe & Mail (Free Our Wine, and the rest will follow) endorses the effort of Kelowna MP, Ron Cannan, to modernize Canada\’s archaic wine shipping laws. A post-prohibition era 1928 law currently makes it illegal for consumers to transport a single bottle of wine across a provincial border. The law also makes it illegal for BC wineries to ship to consumers in other parts of Canada. This law was originally designed to stop the inter-provincial traffic of liquor between provinces that had retained prohibition and those that had scrapped it in favour of government control. However, this purpose is long gone and the law is now used solely by monopoly provincial liquor boards to prevent competition by maintaining their absolute authority over prices and distribution. Theoretically, the law makes criminals out of tourists who take wine home with them from an Okanagan vacation. A proposed amendment would create a sensible \”personal use\” exemption so that Canadian wine lovers could legally move wine across provincial borders. This reform is long overdue. Please support it by visiting the campaign\’s website at FreeMyGrapes.ca, from where you can email your MP.

A bit of great news from Ottawa. Kelowna Lake Country MP, Ron Cannan, has tabled a motion in the House of Commons to end Canada\’s silly interprovincial wine shipping prohibition by creating a personal use exemption. It\’s about time … and please support this effort by telling your own MP that you strongly support it.

The motion reads as follows:

That, in the opinion of the House, the Canadian wine industry, the Canadian tourism industry and Canadian consumers would benefit from an amendment to the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act to allow any person to import, send, take or transport Canadian wine into any province or territory directly from a winery, liquor board, liquor commission or similar outlet for the sale of wine located in any other province or territory within Canada for consumption by that person and not for resale, further distribution, sale or for any use other than personal consumption.

CBC has now covered this story: Wine should flow across provincial borders

In a surprise development, the Solicitor-General and Police departments have announced that all breathalyzers in BC will be recalibrated so that the \”warning\” level (previously set at .05 which triggered an immediate roadside suspension) will be moved upward to .06. CBC News is reporting that the changeover will take 10 days, during which time \”roadside suspensions will not be given to drivers who are caught in the warning range\”. So, for the next 10 days, the practical consequence will be a limit of .08 (which is the setting for \”fail\” – and for potential criminal charges). After the 10 days, the \”warning\” limit will then be .06. These changes were implemented in response to concerns that the roadside breathalyzers had a \”margin of error\” and may have triggered false \”warning\” readings. These developments are concerning because they imply that the roadside breathalyzers devices are not sufficiently accurate to trigger harsh roadside penalties. Criminal lawyers have previously warned about the accuracy of the devices and the assertion that some police officers are not using them properly. In addition, there are now worrying questions about what to do about drivers who were given suspensions, perhaps without justification, and about whether the devices are sufficiently accurate at the .08 level.

Fresh off a victory in defeating privatization initiatives in WA state, distributors there are asking the WA liquor control board to permit them to charge an \”extra fee\” when retailers buy wine in less than full case lots. Specialty retailers can currently purchase wine in \”mixed cases\” from wholesalers which permits them to offer greater selection to consumers without tying up cash in an inventory of full cases which may sell slowly. Indeed, according to this news report (Wine Sellers Argue New Fee Will Increase Prices for Consumers), more than half of the wine sold in WA state is sold in \”broken cases\”. The specialty retailers oppose the fee because it could increase the cost of hard to find or limited distribution wines.

Here in BC, this issue is a hot topic for retailers and restaurants because the majority of BC\’s fine wine selection is relegated to the \”SPEC\” distribution system. Wines that are listed as SPEC products are not available AT ALL unless a retailer or restaurant orders a full case. Mixed cases are not permitted AT ALL and customers are usually not permitted to split a case between them. Agents (BC\’s equivalent of distributors) have resorted to repackaging wine in smaller cases of 6 or even 3 in order to improve availability but this increases the price of the individual bottles as wholesale handling and storage costs then increase dramatically. As a result of this systemic discrimination, wine selection in BC retail stores and restaurants is poor compared to other jurisdictions. BC retailers and restaurants have long requested that the SPEC system be fixed.

Kelowna MP, Ron Cannan, has gone on the record calling for reform of the federal Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act. As readers will know, this is the archaic law from 1928 which prevents Canadian wineries from shipping wine directly to consumers in another province. Cannan is calling for the Act to be amended with a personal exemption which will allow wine lovers to direct order wine from other provinces in reasonable quantities for personal use.

Liquor law reform debates are continuing both in BC and south of the border.

BC: In BC, an industry led \”call to arms\” is raging on the Scout Magazine website following the publication of a perceptive open letter to the BCLDB by Vancouver sommelier, Jake Skakun, who argues that the current liquor distribution system is in desperate need of reform: To Whom It May Concern at the BC Liquor Distribution Branch. The debate also continues in the mainstream press over the BC government\’s changes to provincial drunk driving laws: How Much is Too Much? (Globe & Mail).

USA: Tom Wark\’s Fermentation Blog has an excellent summary of the Top Legal and Political Wine Stories of 2010.