HB 429

If you live in Illinois and you ever have wine shipped to your home, you might be interested in HB 429. Our friends at the liquor lobby are trying to help the poor consumers by eliminating out right to purchase wine from out of state and have it shipped to our homes. If you care (and you live in Illinois), email your state representative and tell them you do not support HB 429.

I can say from experience that this is only the first step. In Maryland, you can't buy wine in a grocery store. In Pennsylvania, you have to buy cases of beer from beer distributors. In New York a chain (such as Whole Foods) can only get one liquor license for one store in the chain. These laws have nothing to do with protecting consumers and everything to do with maximizing the distributors' profit. Let's hope we don't start down that road in Illinois.