Libation Law Blog

Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Regulatory and Legal Updates

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By: Ashley Brandt

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Ashley Brandt
jeffrey goldberg

Latest from Libation Law Blog

Live telecast oral arguments may be a federal rarity, but MIssissippi is a bellwether when it comes to access to justice.   The oral arguments in this wine shipping case can be viewed live on the Mississippi Supreme Court’s website at https://courts.ms.gov/appellatecourts/sc/scoa.php  Oral argument is set for November 13, 2019 at 1:30 p.m. (CST). You can find the briefs and read our take on the arguments in the Mississippi wine shipping case in the two entries we’ve done on the case here, and here. At issue is the applicability of the contracting scheme undertaken by some online alcohol…
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The application forms for Illinois adult use cannabis dispensaries are now available through the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation for the first round of cannabis dispensaries that will be issued licenses by May 1, 2020. The Department will be accepting cannabis dispensary license applications starting on December 10, 2019 at 9:30 a.m. through noon on January 2, 2020 (if you’re in line at that time, they’ll take your application). Here’s how the map for the Bureau of Labor Statistics breakdown for where the cannabis dispensary licenses (those in addition to the medical cannabis dispensaries that exist and may…
Back in October we wrote about Michigan’s Lebamoff decision and the win it represents for nationally open markets and alcohol delivery. You can read the entry on the District Court’s opinion allowing out-of-state alcohol retailers to deliver to in-state consumers here, as well as the follow-up describing the stay granted for allowing the State of Michigan the chance to appeal the decision to open the beverage retail market for shipping from out-of-state liquor retailers here. The case is part of the slow plod in bringing Commerce Clause equality to the alcohol industry taking place in the wake of…
The good people over at the Illinois Liquor Control Commission – the entity responsible for Illinois’s liquor law enforcement and regulation – have done bars from Chicago to Effingham a favor by publishing a frequently asked questions flyer regarding Illinois’s new growler & crowler law. Illinois bars and restaurants and even Illinois liquor attorneys can rest easy with the knowledge that these are published interpretations of the new law. Lots of good stuff here, from pre-filling growlers and crowlers in Illinois to the labeling requirements. You can read more about Illinois’s new growler and crowler law here. Here’s the…
The case, Stardom Brands LLC v. SKI Wholesale Beer Corp. (link to opinion) revolved around a dispute over the purchase of pallets of beer. The Plaintiff is an importer of Slavutich beer. The defendants are wholesalers. The plaintiff beer importer asserted that the defendant beer wholesaler orally agreed to purchase two shipping containers of Slavutich beer each holding 1,500 cases of beer. The plaintiff beer importer claimed that it imported the beer but the beer wholesaler only paid for one half of one shipment. After the beer importer sued to get paid on the other ¾ of the price…
Admit it, you’ve purchased ingredients you found out later were defective, or spoiled. Well, buyers like Illinois wineries, Illinois dispensaries, Illinois craft brewers, and Illinois craft distillers have a new weapon in revoking acceptance of goods such as grapes, fruit, cannabis, distilling or brewing ingredients that turn out to be spoiled or damaged or defective in some way that decreases the value of the purchased commodity and which was unknown at the time of acceptance. And Illinois liquor lawyers have a new argument in asserting that revocation of the  acceptance doesn’t require offering the seller a chance to cure the…
The Trademark Trial and Appeals Board and the USPTO don’t work in a vacuum and this recent opinion over a company’s attempt to register BIG SIX for wine shows just how well they’re doing in researching and protecting common vernacular so alcohol manufacturers can continue to utilize common terms.  In this case, the applicant, Plata Wine Partners, LLC, sought to register BIG SIX for “wine” (Class 33). The examining attorney refused registration on the grounds that BIG SIX “is a term of art in the wine industry” so it was merely descriptive of the applicant’s goods. The examining attorney…
You probably know it’s headed downhill as a party in a lawsuit when the court is comparing your arguments to Al Capone’s. That’s what happened in this recent FLSA case out of the 10th Circuit – Kenney v. Helix TCS, Inc., 18-1105 (10th Circ.). As outlined below, however, case law is clear that employers are not excused from complying with federal laws because of their other federal violations. … The employers’ argument to the contrary rests on a legal theory as flawed today as it was in 1931 when jurors convicted Al Capone of failing to pay taxes on…
You’ll recall this is the second appeal in this matter where a group of broadcasters, along with a bar, and a grape farmer brought a First Amendment challenge to Missouri’s prohibitions on truthful alcohol advertising.They argued that Missouri’s laws and regs restrict the manner and methods and truthful content of their alcohol advertising. They won in the district court and the state appealed arguing all along that tied-house restrictions trumped the First Amendment and mandated restrictions on alcohol advertising – apparently forgetting or ignoring cases like Reuben and 44 Liquormart. This is another of those cases showing how states…
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You can read and download the full complaint here. In case you were wondering whether Three Floyds claims trademark dilution – yes, in a big way – citing to the poor Untappd reviews of Floyd’s claiming it would be bad for Three Floyds if people associated the two. Here’s what they selected: The post Here’s the full complaint Three Floyds Brewing filed against Floyd’s Spiked Beverages. Bonus – Untappd shaming appeared first on Libation Law Blog.…
We wrote about the importance of the The Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act of 2019 yesterday. You can read that entry here.  The importance of the SAFE Banking Act to paving the way for providing comfort to financial institutions in turn assuring they will provide services to the cannabis industry as well as giving other third parties safe harbor for the proceeds from transactions with cannabis-related businesses. After yesterday’s vote, Representative Perlmutter – the chief sponsor, had this to say about the engines of progress:  “If someone wants to oppose the legalization of marijuana, that’s their prerogative, but…
The Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act of 2019 is the House Bill cannabis advocates and banking institutions too nervous about cannabis’s status as a Schedule 1 drug have been waiting for. And it is more than just a banking bill, the SAFE Banking Act as its deemed has several provisions relevant to the cannabis industry and related industries providing it services that would provide exemption and safety for related transactions for all service providers, not just banks. Importantly the SAFE Banking Act gives safe harbor to financial institutions potentially removing many barriers that traditional lenders and depository institutions may…
In Polk, the plaintiff sued the defendants to obtain his ownership and profits from a cannabis growing business they had allegedly started together. When they started the business under Washington state’s newly enacted recreational marijuana laws back in 2013, the plaintiff could not disclose his ownership in the business given his criminal history and restrictions on obtaining a license with such a history. Plaintiff alleges the parties initially agreed to a 30/30% split between plaintiff and defendant founder and that the remaining 40 percent of the cannabis cultivation business would go to investors. Until 2015, plaintiff worked in the business,…
It’s rare to see textbook examples of the application of legal principles, even less common for Illinois liquor lawyers must be the application to a scenario that could impact a bar, brewpub, taproom, tasting room, or restaurant. The issue in Witcher v. 1104 Madison St. Restaurant d/b/a Plush Chicago involved a Chicago restaurant/lounge’s duty in tort law to protect its patrons from criminal acts committed by third parties (note: this is not about dram shop liability). That duty to patrons hasn’t changed since you learned it in law school: As a general rule, there isn’t a duty imposed on landowners…
A three judge panel of the 5th Circuit ended Walmart’s recent Commerce Clause triumph. Overturning and remanding for further fact-finding, the district court’s finding that a Texas ban on public companies owning liquor stores was enacted with a discriminatory intent meant to keep out-of-state interests from holding in-state liquor licenses. You can read the full opinion here.  Walmart has requested a rehearing en banc and the Texas Liquor Store lobbying group looking to protect its hold on in-state monopolized licenses has filed a request for the same three judge panel to re-hear the case and find in its favor…