Arkansas Blog

"We should be encouraging voting, not throwing up roadblocks to voting. We should have postcard voting, truth be told."

As our beloved ex-County Clerk, Carolyn Staley, once said, "If we weren't sure whether someone was eligible to vote, we just let them vote anyway. We wouldn't want to deny anyone their franchise."

Max, is it really so hard for you to see the fallacy in her statement? Or yours?

They throw up the smoke screen about minors being able to order wine, yet the story in the paper quotes Rep. Wells saying that the winery people don't see that happening much.

It's ok for somebody from out of state that stops off at one of Arkansas's wineries and samples some of our wine and then be able to order it shipped to their state later, but if an Arkie does the same thing in another state it isn't. That smacks of protectionism pure and simple. Of course that is nothing new for the Arkansas Legislature.

But why would we want to "protect" Arkansas businesses from selling more of a product the public may want?

I know, I shouldn't expect logic from our legislature.

I've heard of many now who are purchasing wine from out of state and having it shipped with no problems at all. In fact, there is at least one sizeable "buying group" who, frustrated by the higher prices here and the lack of choice for mid level and higher premium wine, place sizeable orders on a regular basis and divvy the wine up. It's very easy to do.

As was explained to me by a third party, they are committed to supporting local merchants but it just became so much more compelling from a choice, availability, quality and price perspective that they feel completely justified.

Hard not to agree. The consumer now has choices whether the legislature and distributor monopoly thinks they do or not and they are exercising their power to choose. The ledge and the distributor monopoly think they are in control?? That's over. History. Gone. Done deal.

It's called the Internet. That's would be the "gateway to the outside world" the Ledge is prohibited from using.

I was hoping the mail order wine bill would pass. The wineries have great potential to be developed as a tourism draw but they need to actually be out in the marketplace to be taken more seriously and none produce the volume to do anything on a national retail sale. Small mail order would have been great for them.

As to photo ID. Really don't have a problem with that if the appropriation passes to GIVE a state issued photo ID to all Arkansans over age 18 passes. That appropriation would be of great value to the poor and homeless.

Anyone whose has gotten used to having wine shipped to them in Arkansas is in for a surprise after this legislature recesses. The Governor is opposing all shipping and plans to have the current limited shipping by Arkansas wineries removed. UPS and FEDX will refuse shipments on the shipping end. Go look at the UPS.com/wine website. Arkansas will go on the no-shipping status. Wineries would have to mis-label and lie to ship wine to ARkansa. They could lose their federal license to manufacture wine for doing that. The Arkansas wineries have tried to get open shipping for everyone. They consider the other 49 states to be a big market for their wines. With that market unavailable, Arkansas really stands to lose jobs, tax money, etc. I don't understand what makes Beebe so closed-minded on this issue, but until the people of Arkansas start shouting loud enough, we're going to continue to be a prohibitionist state.

The Arkansas winemakers can't even get their wines into the restaurants in the LR/NLR area, where is all this nationwide demand for their products they're claiming?
The spouse & I dine out regularly around town and always ask about local wines if they're not on the wine list (they never are). We've yet to find a restaurant with any Arkansas wine availble.

National Market for Arkansas Wines? Let's see how that might actually go down in reality..

You're in a restaurant, say, say Tuscon, not even a big swanky city.
Waiter enters stage left:

"Sir, we have a lovely 97 Hogue Estate Cab from the Napa Valley or, if your feeling particularly adventurous this evening, we might suggest, and I do mean might, the April 2007 Concord Grape "President Clinton" Red from Gravel Flats, AR. From the The North Slope of course."

I dunno. Marketing can only do so much. Tough to link AR and Wine. Now, start pushing a product called Uncle JimBoBobs Razorback Sour Mash and you could have somehting.

Little bit of a disconnect with the wine there you think?

Beebe tossing in with the wine distributors is not going to go over well. This is a big issue to many. And if they think they can cut off the out-of- state shipments coming into AR, I think they will find that harder to do than they imagine. The wine shippers, the big ones from Chicago, NY, CA and NJ, have it down to a science in getting through the "do not ship" flags.

It's not the vineyards. That's a very small slice of the pie. If the Ledge only knew how much wine is lost to local retailers here each year because getting wine shipped in is now big time. It beats the system and is a better option in evdry way for those who really enjoy wine. And that is the market where the margins are.

Unfortunately,this goes on at the expense of the retailers. It's the stranglehold the distributors have on the State that are the problem. But the liquor/wine retailers should put pressure onthem because they are the ones losing out.

This is pure protectionism of the distributor racket that is Arkansas's version of organizaed crime.

Look at your distributor kings over the years. All living like kings on the backs of the regular AR consumer who had to pay a premium and suffer from very limited selection to boot.

The Ledge just sucked up to the distributors and so did the "populist guv."

And that stupid, vapid argument about not wanting to make it easy for Teens to ship in wine. Yeah, we all know a lot fo teens who can't wait to get together over the wekend to slug back a nice, perky 2004 Pinot when they want somehting different than their usual joint with a Pabst Blue Ribbon chaser.

What a joke this one is. Guv--You blew this one. Distributors..eventually your ride to easy street will end. Enjoy the last fading moments.