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Independence day for Kansas wine buyers
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Thanks to ex-governor Sebelius for wine buying freedom in Kansas
Hurray, it's Independence Day! And it's also "independence day" for Kansas wine buyers. Technically the new Kansas law went into effect on July 1st, but why not celebrate today, right along side our country's birthday?
One of former governor Sebelius' last official acts was to put her signature on a law that allows Kansas residents to legally have wine shipped to their home from out of state wineries. In the wine trade, this is known as "direct shipping" because wineries ship directly to your home, bypassing the three tier system, where it first must go through a state distributor and then to a retail store in order for you to purchase wine.
Many older folks can remember Kansas as a "dry" state that eventually licensed state regulated stores to sell wine and liquor. And it wasn't all that long ago that, if you wanted a glass of wine at a restaurant on the Kansas side, you paid a "club fee" (usually a buck) and then could get served because you had instantly become a member of a "private club," where regular restaurant liquor rules did not apply.
But things have changed in the last couple of years. With the advent of the Internet, wine is available for purchase, not only from wineries but other wine retailers as well. With the landmark Supreme Court ruling of Granholm v. Heald in 2005, many states have acknowledged that consumers have the right to buy wine from out of state. Missouri, which has always been an open state as far as liquor laws, already allowed direct shipping. Kansas, however, had lagged behind the times.
The law reads "Special Order Shipping licensees (wineries) cannot ship more that 12 standard cases of wine of one brand or a combination of brands to any one Kansas consumer or Kansas address per calendar year." Experts in the wine business interpret this to mean that Kansas residents can receive, via direct shipping, 12 cases of wine per year. Though I detect some vagueness in the wording that could be interpreted to mean 12 cases of wine, from each winery, per year.
In any event, many of us have traveled to California wine country, tasted some great wines, then returned home to Kansas, disappointed to find these wines unavailable here because no Kansas distributor carried them. The clever wine buff probably drove over to Missouri to search for the wines because a wider variety of wines are available on the Missouri side. But, that's a whole 'nother can of worms because it is illegal to buy alcohol in Missouri and then transport it back across the state line into Kansas.
The new law applies only on shipments from wineries, not wine stores or retailers in other states. It also requires the carrier, for example UPS, to obtain a signature from some one 21 years or older, in order to deliver the wine. The new law finally puts Kansas in step with most other states in allowing wine consumers more freedom of choice about how and where they can get their wine.
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