Peter Suderman in Reason on the baleful effects of the Prohibition episode on quality bar ingredients and American drinking culture generally.
Posts Tagged ‘alcohol’
November 15 roundup
- “A Link Between Alcohol and Cancer? It’s Not Nearly as Scary as It Seems” [Aaron E. Carroll, New York Times; Ronald Bailey]
- Court rejects “sovereign citizen” pitch on behalf of disgraced Subway pitchman Jared Fogle [Matt Reynolds, Courthouse News]
- I’m quoted on U.S. Senate’s Roy Moore perplex [Matt Kwong, CBC] And my Twitter thread on the signed yearbook that figures in Monday’s allegations went viral;
- Time to end it: “Low-Income Housing Tax Credit: Costly, Complex, and Corruption-Prone” [Chris Edwards and Vanessa Brown Calder, Cato]
- “When Statutes Conflict, Agencies Shouldn’t Get to Pick Which One They Like More” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato on Cato certiorari amicus in Chevron deference case of Perez-Guzman v. Sessions]
- “More Lawyers or More Justice?” Mark Pulliam reviews Barton and Bibas’s Rebooting Justice, earlier here and here]
Turning the legal screws on retail wine-over-the-net
The powerful alcohol wholesalers’ lobby has been putting the legal squeeze on consumers’ access to retail wine across state lines. I explain in a new Cato post.
More: Also possibly relevant, this 2012 paper by Omer Gokcekus and Dennis Nottebaum, abstract:
This study develops thirteen criteria to detail diverging direct shipping laws of the U.S. states. It also investigates why some states have prohibitive laws by utilizing a logit regression model. Regression results provide strong support for public finance and special interest arguments: It appears that states concerned about incurring losses in tax revenues, that is, that are heavily dependent on federal aid and have low state revenues, and protecting the wholesalers and retailers that benefit from the three-tier system (at the expense of wineries and wine drinkers) are most likely to have a prohibitive law.
“Canada may legalize drunken canoeing”
Impaired operation of a powerboat can easily pose dangers for other watercraft and water users. Canoes, probably not so much. A proposed change would also exclude from “vessel” such muscle-powered conveyances as kayaks and inflatable rafts. [Lowering the Bar; update]
“Lawyer sues to end bottomless brunches”
Manhattan attorney Robert Halpern, a “public interest lawyer” — says who? — fancies himself a scourge of the weekend mimosa and Bloody Mary crowd. “Bottomless brunches lead to more drinking in the neighborhood, which leads to more noise, more crowds and more uncivil behavior,” he complains in court papers. [Julia Marsh, New York Post]
Food roundup
- Why manufacturers often push for the government to define food terms like “natural” [Peter Van Doren, Cato]
- The curse of Prohibition: how government nearly killed the cocktail [Peter Suderman]
- “Judge tosses class action suits over ‘100 percent grated Parmesan cheese’ label” [ABA Journal] “Food Court Follies: Fraud Suits Fall Apart after Plaintiffs’ Candid Admissions During Discovery” [Glenn Lammi, WLF] “Will a class-action suit really benefit those who bought Starburst [candies] expecting eight-percent fewer calories?” [Baylen Linnekin]
- Farmers are good at replenishing their flying livestock: “How Capitalism Saved the Bees” [Shawn Regan]
- “Menu labeling rules have not proven to have a significant effect on the amount of calories people consume” [Charles Hughes, Economics21 on FDA decision to proceed]
- More reactions to the Seventh Circuit’s caustic ruling (“no better than a racket”) on the Subway footlong settlement [George Leef, Cory Andrews, earlier]
N.D.: no heightened duty of care for designated driver
Via Eugene Volokh, the Eighth Circuit has ruled [Hiltner v. Owners Insurance Co.] that a North Dakota trial court improperly assigned a heightened duty of care to a driver following an accident on the grounds that she had been a designated driver at a social outing. Noting contrary rulings in several jurisdictions, it ruled that North Dakota law would not impose such a heightened duty: as a Tennessee court observed in 2008, “[t]o hold a driver liable for the irresponsible actions of an intoxicated passenger would cut against this important social policy of encouraging the use of designated drivers.” More: T. Thomas Metier, Northland Injury Law.
Sangria served to kids by mistake and someone must pay
Two kids accidentally got served sangria at a suburban Boston restaurant. Despite lack of any report of ill effects from the mix-up, the mom is still suing, just because [NBC Boston]
Food roundup
- “Hilariously Truthful Defense of Waffle House Goes Viral” [Jeffrey Tucker, FEE]
- New York joins 26 states in limiting liability for pick-your-own and other agritourism businesses [Paul Post, The Saratogian]
- “Removing Glyphosate from Our Food Won’t Make Us Safer” [Jenny Splitter, Vice]
- U.K.: advisor to World Health Organization suggests drinking be “de-normalized” by making compulsory cancer warnings on alcoholic beverages [Benedict Spence, The Spectator]
- “Mandating Menu Labeling is Foolish, Not ‘Easy'” [Baylen Linnekin, Reason, earlier]
- How exactly is limiting the size of meal portions in restaurants a proper function for the government of India? [Rupa Subramanya/LiveMint via Alex Tabarrok]
Food roundup
- Good: Incoming Agriculture Secretary Perdue to introduce “flexibility” into Obama-era school lunch mandates [Tony Mecia, Weekly Standard; Baylen Linnekin, Reason; Joe Simonson, Heat Street; Pat Roberts letter; earlier]
- Also good: FDA delays mandate for calorie labels on prepared food [Tim Devaney/The Hill, WSJ editorial, Seyfarth Shaw, earlier]
- And your hot dog isn’t from Frankfurt or Wien either: consumer class actions claiming beer names are geographically misleading struggle to convince judges [Greg Herbers, WLF]
- “We must destroy the ice cream man,” Senators told at hearing [Renae Ditmer, Indian Country Today]
- Canada recalls batch of liquor for having too much alcohol. Way to set up a sure-fire punch line [Canadian Food Inspection Agency]
- Yet another blow to oft-refuted “food deserts” theory [Christine Vaughan et al., RAND Corporation, earlier]