Compromise reached on wine-importing bill

Wednesday, May 5, 1999 | 11:45 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, plunked down three bottles of wine on the witness table before the Assembly Taxation Committee Tuesday to prove his point.

He said if he brought that wine back from California he would be guilty of a felony in violating an old law that prohibits importing more than one gallon a month into Nevada.

Schneider and representatives of the liquor industry told the committee a compromise has been reached on Senate Bill 428 that eases the restriction.

The bill permits a person to bring in 12 cases of wine a year. But it also requires wineries outside Nevada to pay tax on any wine they ship into the state. At present there haven't been any tax collections.

Harvey Whittemore, who represents liquor distributing companies, said he and Schneider came up with an agreement "where the wholesaler isn't hurt, the consumer gets some benefit and the state really gets some benefit because we have a taxing mechanism."

Hundreds if not thousands of people probably break this law every year when they drive to a neighboring state and bring back a case or two of wine. It's a felony. But nobody knows of anybody being arrested.

Schneider said it was a "stupid law." And he said he would try to get it eased further in 2001.

He acknowledged there's a loophole in the bill that would allow a winery to ship 12 cases to an individual who could still drive to California and load up and come back. "But how much wine are you going to drink?" Schneider asked.

The compromise bill calls for a winery that ships 25 cases or more of wine into Nevada to designate a Nevada wholesaler.

This bill prohibits shipping to somebody who is under 21 years old.

The bill is also being amended at the suggestion of Gary Milliken, representing the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, to stop merchants from Nevada driving to California, buying the wine and then returning without paying the tax or going through a Nevada distributor.

Another amendment would exclude nationally known wine expert Jerry Mead from any of the restrictions. Mead, who writes for wine publications out of his Carson City office, wants a section in the law that the restrictions won't apply on complimentary samples shipped to "media writers" or to consumer testing centers.

The bill as originally introduced took all the limits off of how much wine a person could bring back from California or neighboring states. But wholesalers objected to that.

The committee will vote later on the bill.