I seem to have stumbled on a problem that’s apparently serious enough to have warranted considerable attention in courtrooms around the country– and now, at last, the United States Supreme Court.
The issue to be decided: can an out-of-state liquor distributor sell alcoholic beverages to residents of certain U.S. states without establishing a storefront in that state?
Yep, out of all the nation’s most pressing legal issues, this is the one which merits the High Court’s precious time and resources.
This came to my attention in an article that first appeared in a publication named Reason. Their slogan is “Free Minds and Free Markets”, which suggests to me a libertarian bent. Here it is:
The Supreme Court Is Poised To Remind States That the Constitution Doesn’t Stop at the Liquor Store
Apparently, Arizona is one of a number of states to have enacted legislation banning direct sales of alcoholic beverages to consumers without having a storefront business within state lines. I suppose that means a customer can’t order a bottle of wine from a small winery in Pennsylvania to be shipped directly to their home in Tucson or Prescott or Wicklenburg. Instead, they’re forced to place a special order through the local liquor store.
According to the article, this practice is an example of protectionist legislation. It favors in-state businesses over out-of-state competitors– and that, it’s claimed, is not only anti-competitive but more importantly, unconstitutional.
I assume the state laws in question are mostly older, predating the Internet. I can’t imagine there aren’t already plenty of sites available online from which we can place a direct order for pretty much anything. Not since I learned that a significant percent of the guns used by minors in fatal incidents were purchased online.
If a 15-year-old kid can get on his laptop and find someone willing to ship him a .45, surely he could employ the same skills to buy booze online. All he’d need is a credit card, probably filched from Mom’s purse.
So I have to conclude that this “fiercely contested legal issue” is really just a dispute over who gets to keep money from liquor sales.
