We’re usually about the beer here, but applaud any effort to create more sane alcohol legislation. And since this is for my adopted home state…

From Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws:

Wine Direct Shipping Bill to be Introduced this Week

Urge Your State Senator and Delegates to Co-sponsor Raskin/Hucker Bill

A wine direct shipping bill is going to be introduced this week in the Maryland General Assembly. Now we need Marylanders to take action!

Please take a few minutes to contact your state Senator and Delegates. Ask them to co-sponsor Sen. Jamie Raskin’s and Del. Tom Hucker’s wine direct shipping bill. This legislation will allow Marylanders to receive fine wines direct-mailed from Maryland wineries, out-of-state wineries, and retailers like wine.com. Find out who your elected officials are and how to contact them here.

In the coming weeks we will be asking you and your friends to write and meet your legislators, testify at committee hearings, and write letters-to-the-editor to support wine direct shipping in Maryland. We also need your donations for our grassroots lobbying efforts. It won’t be easy taking on the powerful interest groups opposed to modernizing Maryland’s wine laws, but we know our members are up to the task. We look forward to working with all of you in making wine direct shipping a reality in Maryland in 2008.

11-Mar-2008 Update: Unfortunately, while proponents were testifying before the Senate, a House committee was voting to quash the bill. From an e-mail distributed by Marylanders for Better Beer and Wine Laws:

Unfortunately, while we were making our case in the Senate for direct-to-consumer wine shipping, the House Economic Matters Committee was secretly voting to kill our bill. We left the hearing room only to receive the crushing news that the House committee had killed our bill. Needless to say, we were furious. Here’s the Baltimore Sun article about the House committee vote.

Let’s “Spank” the House Committee for Defying the Will of the People

We know that over 700 people have written over 2,600 letters to Maryland legislators in support of HB 1260/SB 616. According to Free the Grapes, Marylanders have sent more faxes to legislators in this campaign than possibly any other campaign they have been involved in. We have to assume that hundreds more people have written thousands of more emails directly to the legislators without our knowledge.

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