Ken Starr Backs Minors Buying Wine Illegally

Ken Starr is back for Michigan bibulophiles.  

Some Michigan consumers sued to overturn the law preventing out of state wineries from shipping to Michigan addresses.  Violates the interstate commerce clause they said.  The US Supreme Court agreed, and overturned states rights to regulate alcohol sales.  

Some Michigan politicians objected to new wine in new bottles coming in, on the basis that minors could order wine by mail.  These Michigan politicians apparently forgot that Michigan wineries were allowed to ship a likely inferior product to the same minors.  The Michigan legislature, consumed with preventing school boards from setting the starting date of the school year, hasn’t gotten around to fixing Michigan’s illegal law on way or the other.

So, Cox, the Republican attorney general, went to Federal court asking an order banning Michigan wineries from shipping, same as the California wineries.  Now comes Ken Starr, whose firm is from California, representing the Michigan wineries, opposing this order.

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Cox urges ban on Michigan wine shipments until law is fixed

By David Shepardson / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox proposes temporarily banning the state's 43 wineries from making shipments across the state until the Legislature decides how to fix what he says is a flawed law that prohibits out-of-state wineries from selling directly to consumers.
"For the time being, the only responsible course of action is to ban all direct sales and shipments," according to a legal filing Cox's office made Thursday in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
But Cox's proposal asking a federal judge to temporarily ban Michigan wineries from shipping within the state could cause them severe economic harm, according to a legal brief filed by Kenneth Starr, an attorney representing the trade group WineMichigan. Starr, a California-based lawyer, is best known as the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton's dalliance with a White House intern.
"By prohibiting all direct shipment of wine within Michigan's borders, this court could cripple Michigan's growing wine industry," Starr wrote.
Since May, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared both Michigan and New York's wine laws unconstitutional, Michigan has been grappling with how to fix its law.
About 600,000 people visit Michigan wineries annually in what has become a $75 million industry that's "one of the state's fastest-growing industries," Starr wrote.
Today, 32 states allow consumers to receive some form of direct shipments of wine from out-state wineries, up from 26 in May. New York, Connecticut, Ohio and Texas have lifted their bans in recent months.
In 1985 Michigan amended its alcohol laws to allow in-state wineries to mail wine to residents, but barred out-state wineries from doing the same. The Supreme Court, in declaring Michigan's law unconstitutional, said the state must treat in- and out-state wineries the same -- either ban all from shipping wine or allow all to do it.
The Michigan Legislature is considering a number of proposals to change the law, including one that would allow all wineries to ship up to 500 cases of wine a year, but would also bar in-state wineries from directly selling wine to local restaurants.