Bill would put old wine law on shelf

CARSON CITY -- Hundreds and perhaps thousands of Nevadans are unknowingly breaking the state's bootlegging law when they travel to California or an adjoining state, buy a case of wine and bring it home.

A law that dates to 1935, two years after Prohibition ended, restricts individuals to bringing into the state one gallon a month of liquor or wine from outside Nevada for their own use. About six bottles of wine equals a gallon.

The law, said Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, was designed to protect the Nevada liquor wholesalers, and he says it's time for the law to change.

Schneider has introduced Senate Bill 428 to permit unlimited importation of wine by individuals for their personal use. And he has Jerry Mead, one of Nevada's foremost wine experts, behind him.

"This is an archaic law," Mead wrote to legislators in a letter delivered Wednesday. "Times have changed. The liquor dealers hate to give up on this, but we can't make everyone a criminal who brings back a case of wine."

"So many of our residents are from California," Schneider said, "and they just drive over and buy a case of wine, because they are by a winery or in Southern California by a big liquor store and they bring it back because they cannot get the selection in Nevada.

"And each time that they put a case or two or three in their trunk for personal consumption, they are committing a class D felony. That's why we have to get rid of this (law)."

Mead, who lives in Carson City and is editor and publisher of The Wine Trader magazine, wrote to legislators that "every time you or one of the people you represent, goes to Napa Valley, or just over the hill to El Dorado, Nevada County or Amador County wine countries and come home with a mixed six-pack of wines as souvenirs, the law has been broken."

Mead says the opposition will come from "the three or four powerful wholesalers in Nevada, which have virtually the only state-sanctioned monopoly left in America."

But Harvey Whittemore, lobbyist for Southern Wine & Spirits of Nevada, said there is a "real fear" this bill "would be used for a black market commercial purpose," permitting residents to drive trucks of liquor into Nevada and sell at a reduced price without paying a license fee and escaping taxes.

"There are over 50 wholesalers in Nevada affected if there are not appropriate controls," he said Friday.

Mead sees the choice as simple. "Pass the personal importation bill for the countless consumers it will benefit and for the American principle of free trade. Or oppose it to the benefit of three or four monopolistic giant corporations."

Mead said the "current system of more or less ignoring that it is illegal to bring wine in from another state is no longer good enough."

There's another problem with the present law, Schneider said. "Lots of people I know in Las Vegas put their names on the list of these little wineries in California with limited production, perhaps a few thousand cases a year.

"Some years they are able to buy two or three cases and have them shipped over here. Right now we're not getting any sales tax" on those purchases, Schneider said. "Under the new law at the end of the year, the liquor suppliers in California or other states would be required to report how many cases they shipped over along with the tax. That's part of the reciprocal agreement we're working on."

California and other states in the West have agreements to collect the taxes when liquor is shipped out of state. Nevada is not included. And some wineries and shipping companies are refusing to deliver in Nevada.

Whittemore wants to make sure those exporters from outside Nevada get a state permit and pay the taxes when they send the wines here. While this bill applies only to wine, Whittemore says there are people who want to include liquor, allowing it to be hauled to Nevada in unlimited quantities by private individuals.

He's also worried that minors could get the shipments when they arrive at the home. "We need to have a system where it's accepted by a 21-year-old. We need to be assured taxes are paid on these products."

Whittemore and Schneider hope to have a compromise worked out by Tuesday. There's a verbal agreement now, says Schneider, to change the law to permit individuals to bring in 12 cases of wine each year for their personal use.

Mead says his business is starting to be affected because other states are refusing to ship wine to Nevada because of the lack of the reciprocal agreement.

"For the first time in my life I am having difficulty getting the product samples for review that are my lifeline to the world of wine," he said. "This because the carriers will not carry and the producers and importers are afraid to ship into the state of Nevada."

Getting an agreement with other states, Schneider said will mean more tax money for Nevada. "Right now we're not getting any sales tax."

The bill has gone to the Senate Taxation Committee, and Chairman Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, has told the sides to work out a compromise before the Friday deadline for committee action on legislation.

archive