Bill that Coble is backing reeks of sour grapes

From an editorial published in the The High Point Enterprise on April 29:

Recently the Enterprise reported on the inaugural Southern Gateway Wine Festival held in Uptown Lexington. It was an event organized to showcase Davidson County's four wineries.

Yes, Davidson County now is home to four flourishing wineries: Childress Vineyards, Junius Lindsay Vineyards, Native Vines Winery and Weathervane Winery. Add in Zimmerman Vineyards in Trinity and several vineyards that have opened in recent years in Guilford County, such as Stokesdale's Stonefield Cellars Winery, and it's clear that winemaking in the congressional Sixth District of North Carolina is a growing industry.

In fact, North Carolina's winemaking industry has grown so much that the state's 100th vineyard recently opened.

A common characteristic of these vineyards and wineries is that most are smaller, family-owned and family-operated businesses. At many, rows of grapevines now cover land that for decades was covered with row after row of tobacco. For many small businesses in the Sixth District and across the Tarheel State, grapes and wine have become the new cash crop.

That is why it is so unfortunate that our own Sixth District Republican Congressman Howard Coble is a leading co-sponsor of a bill in Congress that would significantly harm these small, family-run businesses by hampering their ability to promote and sell their products to an eager nationwide market.

A bill that would find favor with the nation's alcoholic beverage wholesalers, the Community Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness Act of 2011, was introduced in the U.S. House in March and is making its way through the halls of Congress. By official definition, the bill is "to reaffirm state-based alcohol regulation." But, in actuality, the bill would circumvent laws and recent court rulings that prohibit states from erecting barriers to interstate commerce in efforts to prevent wineries and vineyards such as those nearby from selling their products directly to consumers across the country.

Supporters of this bill say it's about giving control of alcohol sales to the individual states. But it's really about giving control to the huge wine distributors who don't like the competition of direct sales from vineyards to buyers. It's a bill that if enacted will penalize many hardworking, family-owned, small businesses across the Sixth District, this state and the nation. It's a bill that Howard Coble should not be supporting.

N.C. Opinions offers editorial viewpoints from various newspapers. The views expressed are not necessarily those of The Observer's editorial board.