{"id":27493,"date":"2014-08-23T12:14:20","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T17:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=27493"},"modified":"2014-08-23T12:14:20","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T17:14:20","slug":"pennsylvania-police-to-destroy-rare-wine-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/08\/23\/pennsylvania-police-to-destroy-rare-wine-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania police to destroy rare wine collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michelle Minton<\/a> tells the sad tale of a rare wine fan who got too greedy (as the state tells it) or a state that got too greedy (as Pennsylvania wine fans tell it):<\/p>\n

In the fifth century BCE, famous Greek tragedian Euripides supposedly said, \u201cwhere this no wine there is no love.\u201d This certainly holds true in present day Pennsylvania, which has one of the nation\u2019s strictest alcohol regulatory regimes. And according to Tom Wark<\/a>, executive director for the American Wine Consumer Coalition, Pennsylvania is \u201cthe worst state to live in if you’re a wine lover.” In Philadelphia, one man<\/a> surely isn\u2019t feeling the brotherly love after police raided his home and seized 2,426 bottles of rare wine\u2014with an estimated value of more than $125,000\u2014that the police reportedly plan to \u201cdestroy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arthur Goldman, a 50-year-old lawyer, alleged ran afoul of Pennsylvania\u2019s archaic wine laws by purchasing and selling through unapproved channels. In Pennsylvania, one of ten states that doesn\u2019t allow direct shipping of wine<\/a> to consumers, the only place one can purchase wine is through state-owned liquor stores. For wine connoisseurs looking for a bottle unavailable for purchase in state stores, the only other option is to order their wine through one of the sanctioned \u201cdirect wine shippers\u201d and have it sent to a state store. Of course, this adds a certain cost to the purchase (shipping charge, plus $4.50 handling, the state’s 18 percent Johnstown Flood tax<\/a>, 6 percent sales tax, and an addition 2 percent Philadelphia tax). With an average shipping rate<\/a> of $7 per bottle or $22 per case, this means that a typical $50 bottle of wine would end up costing $74. A case of that wine, which would have cost $600 could cost around $832 after jumping through the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board\u2019s hoops. Of course, Goldman was likely purchasing much rarer and more expensive wines\u2014the tax and shipping costs, assuming the approved direct shipping companies had the wines he wanted\u2014could have been astronomical.<\/p>\n

Cops paint a picture of a sophisticated racket meant to make Goldman a lot of money, but his lawyer asserts it was more like a group of 15-20 wine connoisseurs for whom Goldman would procure bottles unavailable in the state, only charging them for his costs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Minton tells the sad tale of a rare wine fan who got too greedy (as the state tells it) or a state that got too greedy (as Pennsylvania wine fans tell it): In the fifth century BCE, famous Greek tragedian Euripides supposedly said, \u201cwhere this no wine there is no love.\u201d This certainly holds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13,131],"tags":[343,469,211,118],"class_list":["post-27493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law","category-usa","category-wine","tag-crimeandpunishment","tag-monopolies","tag-pennsylvania","tag-taxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-79r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27494,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27493\/revisions\/27494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}