WTN Services- Compliance Update- Florida action pending…
Presently in the Florida legislature there are three competing bills that could address wine direct shipping in the current session. Senate Bill 126 (Saunders) and Senate Bill 2282 (Geller) both include restrictive “capacity caps or maximums” that would prohibit any winery that produces more than 250,000 gallons per year from shipping directly to Florida residents.
House Bill 1217 (Bogdanoff) does not include any capacity caps and is based on the model direct shipping bill supported by the Wine Institute and a majority of the wine industry. Wineries and wine consumers are supporting HB 1217 while wine wholesalers are pushing the capacity caps and protections that would harm California wineries.
Every since February 2006, California and other state wineries have been able to ship to Florida under a determination by the Department of Business & Professional Regulation (DBPR) that helped bring Florida into compliance with Granholm. This was to be temporary until more permanent legislation was passed. However, the DBPR is hinting that if legislation is not passed by May 5th, they may act and may revoke the right to ship wine to Florida until legislation is finalized.
A link to the web pages of the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate is
Stay tuned to our blog and the Wine Institute for further details….