Legislation Helps Wine Industry

Legislation Helps Wine Industry. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Governor Gregoire has put her signature to a couple of bills that help the Washington wine industry and is expected to sign a third this week. Marty Clubb, President of the Washington Wine Institute explains.

CLUBB: What was referred to as the Omnibus Stakeholder bill and then there was this corkage fee bill which was House Bill 1227 and this Farmers Market wine tasting bill, House Bill 1172. So basically there was a number of stakeholders, the restaurant association, the Washington Wine Institute. Basically it did really three things. One, the Liquor Control Board had taken the interpretation that winery employees need an agents license if they were in the marketplace.

He said they believed it was only necessary if you hired a third party to represent the winery.

CLUBB: We included in this Omnibus Bill clarification that basically if you are a winery that’s already licensed your employees are not subject to having this additional agents license. The other was there’s been some confusion over what’s called ties between the industry where retailers are not allowed to interface with wholesalers and not allowed to interface with manufacturers that’s called tied house laws.

Clubb says this will allow wineries to pay a reasonable booth fee for a charity event. The way the law was you could not technically pay someone in that case to help organize this kind of event. More tomorrow on these three bills.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.