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THE FOURTH TIER
The Fourth Tier Manifesto
by Russ Bridenbaugh
What is the "Fourth Tier"? In a word, you who are reading this - that is,
consumers of wine and spirits. Look at any graphic of the current alcohol
beverage industry and you will see something called "The three tier system."
Three tiers - producers on one end, retailers on the other and wholesalers
in the middle. Three tiers. Nowhere are you - the consumer, ever mentioned
even though without us, there wouldn't be a "Three" tier system at all.
Afterall, every dime that greases the gears of the three tier system comes
from us - The Fourth Tier, and yet we have no say in what form or function
the industry uses. We are expected to shut up and simply buy the product.
We have no lobby at the legislature to influence laws that ultimately
have a very definite effect on us. We have no one to complain to when
we are continually insulted and beat over the head by the Indiana Wine
Wholesalers and their palm-greasing lobbyists.
The only recourse consumers of wine have ever had is to Federal courts
where money will not buy Federal Judges. And it should be noted that
many of the most successful federal cases have been initiated by wine
writers. (In 1998 I and several consumers challenged Indiana's brand
new "wholesaler's helper" law banning direct shipment of wine to
consumers from out-of-state wineries. We won at the lower court level
but lost on appeal. However, others in other states took up the cause
which ultimately ended in 2005 in Granholm v Heald (the Healds are
husband and wife wine writers) in which the US Supreme Court declared
bans on out-of-state shipping were unconstitutional if local wineries
could, in fact, ship direct to their customers).
The wholesalers have always wanted to have their cake and eat it in
front of the rest of us consumers. Not content with the state-granted
monopoly, they also wanted the 2 per cent that constituted the direct
shipping market from out-of-state wineries. Greed is the byword here.
And it does not matter that consumers want to be able to have wines
shipped directly to their homes - you have no voice, remember. You are
to be silent and do as you're told. And they even tried to do an end
run on the Granholm case - by cashing in their legislative chips.
In the 2006 legislative session, a so called "attempt" was made to
square Granholm with Indiana law. (Because Indiana wineries were
entitled to ship direct to customers but out-of-state wineries were
prohibited from doing so.) What came out at the end was a bizarre
series of hoops that Indiana wineries had to jump thru in order to
ship direct as well as a mishmash of arbitrary regulations that make
it all but impossible for out-of-state wineries to ship direct to
Hoosier consumers. This came after the wholesalers (who wrote the
bills) first tried to take direct shipping away ENTIRELY from Indiana
wineries.
Now the new law is being challenged in federal court - once again by
a wine writer - Patrick Baude, an Indiana University law professor
who also writes a wine column for Bloom Magazine, a Michigan winery
and some wine consumers. Immediately the plaintiffs were accused by
the Indiana Wine Wholesalers of "...emasculating Indiana's authority
to regulate the sale of alcoholic beverages within its borders..." More
on this case later.
What I want wine consumers to understand is that finally some
leadership has manifested itself to organize and fight for the
consumer. VinSense is that group and it is vital that you get
involved. The Fourth Tier must assert itself. We can no longer
sit helplessly by while the legislature sells out to the wholesale
lobby at our expense. We are the money and it is overdue that we
step up and demand a voice in how the beverage alcohol industry
in Indiana is going to be run.
Russ Bridenbaugh is a wine journalist who wrote a weekly wine
column for 14 years for the Indianapolis Star/News. He presently
is a consultant and writes and publishes The WineView Newsletter.
He lives in Bloomington. Contact him at
wineview@hotmail.com
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