http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,34126,00.html Wineries Offer Boos to NY Laws by Declan McCullagh ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 3:00 a.m. 5.Feb.2000 PST WASHINGTON -- Beer and wine distributors in New York state have long enjoyed a pleasantly profitable monopoly: Anyone who bypasses them goes to jail. Advertising or shipping alcohol to Empire State residents without going through a liquor wholesaler is a crime, thanks to those businesses' political clout and impenitent bluenoses in the Albany legislature. Needless to say, this Prohibition-era mentality isn't exactly a boon to e-commerce, and out-of-state wineries this week filed a federal lawsuit to try to overturn New York's antiquated anti-booze laws. (A typically antediluvian example: One provision says police and other officials can't "manufacture" their own alcohol, something that could make felons of socially upstanding but legally naive home beer brewers.) [...]
