new york

New York Winemakers Forced to Market Out-of-State

by Angela Logomasini on May 28, 2010

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty

Scott Osborn–proprietor of Fox Run Vineyards located in the Finger Lakes wine region in New York–poured samples of his great wines at the Gainesville, Virginia Wegmans supermarket last Friday. The store stocks his wines and a host of other New York State wines. Ironically, many resident New Yorkers lack such convenient access to these wines because of their state’s special-interest regulations.

Not only it is against the law for supermarkets to sell wine in the state, the state has a relatively low number of liquor stores thanks to an arduous licensing process and regulations limiting one retail license per person—policies that discourage entrepreneurship. Many–but not all–existing liquor stores support these regulations to reduce competition, and they lobby hard to keep them in place.

To add insult to injury, some existing stores refuse to stock products from political competitors: wineries that advocate supermarket sales. An article in the Wine Spectator addresses how some shops have tried to strong-arm state wineries via what amounts to unofficial boycotts of their wines.

The impacts of such foolish regulations are severe for many wineries. After all, how can any business survive when there are too few retail outlets? Osborn detailed the results of such policies in the Buffalo News earlier this week:

New York lost nine wineries from 2008 to 2009—the only major wine producing state that did not see a net increase in the number of wineries. Our grape farmers are going out of business or being forced to sell off valuable farmland to pay their bills. Also, when wineries go out of businesses, there is a ripple effect that reaches all the way back to the supply companies and small businesses that support the industry. New York’s wine industry will be destroyed if our lawmakers do not do the right thing and open up the markets for us to be able to sell our product and compete.

Osborn and other wine industry groups called on the state legislature to act on this issue at a press conference earlier this week. “This is an issue that is critical to the sustainability and growth of the New York wine industry,” he noted in a press statement. “My wines are sold in grocery stores throughout the country, but not here in my own state,” he explained.

Susan Hayes of Miles Wine Cellars, agreed: “This proposal [to allow grocery wine sales] will help my business grow—creating much-needed jobs here in the Finger Lakes. It will also help the other 1000-plus grape growing farms and more than 270 wineries in New York have more outlets to sell their wines.”

The conference speakers also pointed to public opinion polls showing how residents overwhelmingly support supermarket sales.

new_york-wegmens

However, at least one winery expressed concerns that supermarkets might not carry state wines. But the evidence suggests the contrary. In fact, the New York State-based supermarket chain—Wegmans—already carries a good bit of New York Wine in Virginia stores, which demonstrates that they understand its marketability. Moreover, the legislation could also expand the number of retail shops. More shops, means more shelf space—and more opportunities to market the state’s wines.

I am glad to have Fox Run and other New York wine available here in Virginia! Yet it is a sad state of affairs when a state’s own entrepreneurs have to travel several states away to market their wares. Wine regions usually serve local markets first and then grow to national and maybe even global prominence. But silly regulations mean that New Yorkers have limited opportunity buy and enjoy many great wines produced in their own state.

LibertyWeek 93: Tea Party Euro Trip

by Richard Morrison on May 17, 2010

in CEI Projects, Features, Podcast, Zeitgeist

Richard Morrison and Jeremy Lott welcome Reason magazine Senior Editor Michael Moynihan to Episode 93 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We take on the high-profile congressional primaries, Chuck Schumer’s hypocritical stance on privacy, the fight for wine liberation in New York, passing the buck on debit card fees and we embark on a Tea Party Euro Trip.

Regulation of the Day 135: Mustache Nets

by Ryan Young on April 28, 2010

in Regulation of the Day

CORRECTION: It appears that I’ve been had. Commenter Dietsch at Jacob Grier‘s blog points out that the article was probably an April Fool’s joke. There are such things as beard net regulations on the books in various cities. But this particularly amusing story appears not to be true; probably for the better.

Hair nets have been a staple of the food service industry for a long time. They are not the most dignified fashion accessory. But they serve a useful purpose. Just like church and state, hair and food are best kept separate. Hair nets are a much easier way to accomplish that goal than, say, mandatory baldness for all kitchen staffs.

Which brings us to the latest fad in Brooklyn’s trendy Cobble Hill neighborhood: mustache nets. For some reason,Victorian-themed restaurants and bars are all the rage right now. Bars are redecorating with old-fashioned furniture and artwork. Bartenders are redecorating themselves with outlandish 19th-century facial hair, from mutton chops to handlebar mustaches.

Unfortunately, a regulation from approximately the same time period is getting in the way of all this nostalgic fun. New York State law requires all persons with facial hair who are serving food or drink to wear a mustache net.

Regulators have been cracking down on un-netted mustaches. They have cited several establishments, as Chow reports:

The crackdown was a surprise to restaurant employees—one bartender apparently panicked and attempted to hide behind a taxidermied warthog. However, many of those cited have remained defiant.

“I’d be happy to have my staff wear mustache nets—if I could find a sustainable source,” said a representative of one of the establishments targeted in the raid. “And so far, I have not found a mustache net farm whose mustache netting practices I believe in.”

It’s pretty easy to see why the nets aren’t very popular. A Google image search for “moustache net” yields this picture:

mustache-net

Doesn’t exactly befit the image of a chic bartender. But in New York, that’s the law.

Friday Regulation Roundup

by Ryan Young on April 23, 2010

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Regulation

Some of the stranger governmental goings-on I’ve dug up recently:

-It is illegal to deface milk cartons in Massachusetts. The punishment is a $10 fine.

-If you aren’t quite sure about the definition of “children’s product,” a proposed regulation would clear that up. Here’s a small sampling: “A determination of whether a product is a ‘children’s product’ will be based on consideration of the four specified statutory factors as further described in the discussion and examples provided in this interpretative rule.”

-The federal government has an Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

-The government spends $23m per year on the National Agricultural Library.

-Wondering what the prevailing consensus is surrounding trailer homes? Check out the government’s Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee.

-Stimulus money is being used to replace peoples’ mailboxes – in some cases against their will.

-Eat your vegetables: The federal government has a Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.

-Seasteaders take note: the federal government has an Outer Continental Shelf Policy Committee.

-$110,000 in stimulus money was spent on an industrial-grade, automated pizza oven.

-It is illegal for a 9th grader to have a mustache in Binghamton, New York.

Regulation of the Day 130: Roommates

by Ryan Young on March 29, 2010 · 1 comment

in Personal Liberty, Regulation, Regulation of the Day

In New York City, it is illegal for four or more unrelated people to live together. At least 15,000 New York homes openly flout the rule.

The ranks of lawless hooligans cut across lines of class and race. According to the New York Times, violators “include young actors and ponytailed post-graduates; rising and falling junior investment bankers; immigrants, legal and illegal; and trend-obsessed residents in Brooklyn neighborhoods.”

The Times also interviewed a young film star who lives with five other people. He is not related to any of them.

People break the regulation to save money on rent. Given the cost of living in New York, this is a smart and prudent way to save money. It also leaves more housing left over for others, which helps to drive down housing costs.

Even better, if enough people pool their resources, they can afford to live in a larger home in a nicer neighborhood than they could pay for alone.

The city has the good sense to rarely enforce the rule – just three times since July, according to the Times. This is good. What would be better is to repeal it. When a law is almost universally regarded as counterproductive, not only should go unenforced, it should go away.

Regulation of the Day 125: Salt

by Ryan Young on March 11, 2010

in Health and Illness, Healthcare, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation of the Day

Having eliminated all crime from New York’s streets, ended homelessness, rebuilt Ground Zero, and fixed the state’s ailing public schools, New York’s state legislature has set its sights on how much salt you eat.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg already has a plan to reduce NYC residents’ salt intake by 25 percent over five years. But State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D-Brooklyn) thinks that doesn’t go nearly far enough. And it only covers New York City, for starters. The rest of the state’s salt intake would remain perilously unregulated under the Bloomberg plan.

That’s why Mr. Ortiz has introduced statewide legislation that would “make it illegal for restaurants to use salt in the preparation of food. Period.”

A $1,000 fine would accompany each violation.

Tom Colicchio, who owns a restaurant and has appeared on the television show Top Chef, is livid. He told the New York Daily News that “New York City is considered the restaurant capital of the world. If they banned salt, nobody would come here anymore… Anybody who wants to taste food with no salt, go to a hospital and taste that.”

He’s right; the salt ban does offend culinary decency. But there’s another angle that’s at least as important: personal responsibility.
If I want to pile on the salt, as Mayor Bloomberg famously does, that’s my right. But I also need to be liable for the consequences. If chronic salt over-consumption gives me high blood pressure and heart trouble, that’s my fault. I should pay the cost.

But that’s not how the current health care system works. We suffer from the 12-cent problem: on average, people only pay 12 cents for every dollar of health care they consume. Roughly 50 cents are picked up by the government, and insurers cover the rest.
That means people have less incentive to watch what they eat than under a more honest system. Why not rack up huge health care bills? Everyone else is paying for me. Health care on sale! 88 percent off!

Freedom cannot exist without responsibility. Decades of government encroachments in health care have taken away a lot of our responsibility for health care decisions. So it makes some sense that Mr. Ortiz would finish the job by taking away peoples’ freedom to eat what they want.

A better solution would be to have both freedom and responsibility, instead of neither. Ban the salt ban. Give people more control over their health care dollars. Let us be free. Let us be responsible. We’re all adults here. Treat us as such, Mr. Ortiz.

LibertyWeek 83: What Would Reagan Do?

by Richard Morrison on March 8, 2010

in CEI Projects, Podcast

Richard Morrison, Jeremy Lott and Marc Scribner collaborate to bring you Episode 83 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We cover the ever-growing deficit, the Reagan legacy, Cablevision v. ABC, the RNC’s fundraising strategy and David Paterson on scandal watch.

Regulation of the Day 119: Bake Sales

by Ryan Young on February 25, 2010 · 1 comment

in Regulation of the Day

New York City’s public schools spent $18,365 per student in the 2007-2008 school year. That spending has been growing at more than double the rate of inflation over the last decade. That’s a lot of money. But since it isn’t spent very wisely, nowhere near that amount actually reaches the classroom.

Instead of firing teachers for incompetence (and sometimes worse), the district re-assigns bad teachers to “rubber rooms,” where they do nothing except receive their full salary. Maybe play Scrabble or surf the Internet. But mainly sit around and get paid.

Average teacher pay in New York City is approaching $70,000. There are about 700 teachers in rubber rooms. Assuming the rubber room teachers draw roughly average salaries, we’re talking about as much as $50 million that never makes it to the classroom from rubber rooms alone. That’s nearly $50 per student right there.

To make up for some of the money that gets lost in rubber rooms and central offices, schools often have fundraising events like bake sales.

Well, not anymore. At least not bake sales. Those are basically banned in New York City. Mayor Bloomberg and the city’s Department of Education worry that bake sales contribute to child obesity.

Bake sales are technically still legal. But only approved foods can be sold. And only at approved times. And never before the end of lunch hour. And you have to keep detailed records. And so on.

Complying with all the rules is just too difficult for a school basketball team raising money for a new scoreboard, or to cover the cost of traveling to a tournament.

Anything goes after 6:00 pm, food-wise. But hardly anybody stays in school that late. PTAs are given a longer leash. But even they cannot hold more than one bake sale per month.

(Hat tip: Fran Smith)

Regulation of the Day 111: Buying Wine in New York

by Ryan Young on February 6, 2010

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Regulation of the Day

It is illegal for grocery stores to sell wine in the state of New York. Only liquor stores are allowed to sell the stuff.

This regulation, a relic of Prohibition, lives on because of one of the central concepts in public choice theory: diffused costs and concentrated benefits.

The benefits are concentrated in one constituency: liquor stores. Regulations give them get millions of dollars in free business. That means they have millions of reasons to lobby to keep the status quo.

Consumers, on the other hand, are hurt by the ban by the exact amount that liquor stores benefit. But that hurt is spread far and wide. No one consumer feels enough pain to hire a high-priced lobbyist to open up the market.

That means New York’s misguided restrictions on competition are likely to continue for some time. It’s hard to imagine an aggrieved shopper suing New York’s wine cartel because she has to make an extra trip to get the wine on her grocery list. Or because she pays a bit more than if she lived in a different state.

(Hat tip: Jonathan Moore)

New York Salt-Slashing Op-Ed in NY Post

by Daniel Compton on January 13, 2010 · 2 comments

in Health and Illness, Healthcare, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Precaution & Risk, Regulation

Here is my op-ed published in the New York Post on January 13th.

As-salt on science

On Monday, city officials rolled out an initiative to curb the salt content in manufactured and packaged foods. But the idea behind it — that salt intake has reached extreme levels in America — is a myth, and this “solution” wouldn’t work, anyway.

City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley aims to lead a national campaign to reduce the amount of salt in manufactured foods by 25 percent over the next five years. Cutting salt intake is supposed to reduce hypertension-related health problems. But while doctors may advise particular patients to cut down on salt, the science tells us that this is not a public-health problem.

Nutritionists at the University of California/Davis just published the first and only study to address salt intake and public policy. They found that people are naturally inclined to regulate salt intake to physiologically determined levels by unconsciously selecting foods to meet their needs — and even the most extreme interventions don’t do much.

The UC Davis study (published in the October issue of The Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology) looked at data from more than 19,000 individuals from 33 countries worldwide. It determined that daily sodium intake ranges only from 2,700 milligrams to 4,900 mg, with the worldwide average of 3,700 mg.

It also determined that the average American consumes about 3,400 mg a day — disproving the claim spread by advocates such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest that US salt consumption is out of control.

In other words, Farley’s trying to fight a problem that doesn’t exist. Worse, his new guidelines say that daily sodium intake for most people shouldn’t exceed 1,500 mg — which is a ridiculous 45 percent below the bottom of the normal consumption range the UC Davis study identified, and a full 60 percent lower than the worldwide average.

The researchers also cite decades of research describing the specific mechanism by which the central nervous system, acting together with several organ systems, controls our appetite for salt. One of the studies they cite involved hundreds of participants in what was to be a three-year sodium-intake intervention, with the goal of reducing daily intake to 1,850 mg.

But after six months, researchers noted that participants were simply unable to cut sodium intake below about 2,750 mg a day — close to the bottom of the range the UC Davis study identified.

Another study had used intensive dietary counseling to get participants to cut daily sodium intake to an average of 1,775 mg over four weeks. After that, the subjects, while still receiving counseling, were randomly split into two groups — one getting a sodium tablet, the other a placebo.

Those who got the placebo still raised their intake by nearly 1,000 mg, while those on the sodium tablet actually cut their dietary-sodium consumption to compensate.

These people didn’t know how much sodium they were getting — they unconsciously changed their diets to match what their bodies “knew” they needed.

The UC Davis study also cites surveys showing that sodium intake in the United Kingdom has “varied minimally” over the last 25 years, despite a major government campaign to reduce it.

Overall, the researchers found, salt intake “is unlikely to be malleable by public policy initiatives,” and attempts to change it would “expend valuable national and personal resources against unachievable goals.”

The New York guidelines are voluntary — for now. But the city’s ban on trans fats started that way, too. And the federal Food and Drug Administration has also been looking to get in on the action — it may classify it as a “food additive,” subject to regulation, sometime this year.

But this campaign isn’t about public health — it’s about grandstanding on a pseudo-issue ginned up by activists, when science clearly shows that there’s neither a crisis nor a way for the government to actually alter our salt intake.

All these initiatives do is win headlines for ambitious policymakers (New York’s last health commissioner parlayed his trans-fat activism into a promotion to FDA chief), while making food slightly more costly and leaving a bad taste in the mouths of consumers — literally.

Daniel Compton is a research associate at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and contributor to OpenMarket.org

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