Category: Law

Another Good Reason To Support The Little Guy

Keeping in mind that by “little guy” I actually mean small brewers and not larger brewers who need their smallness to be defined by a trade organization… but this news out of Newfoundland is just weird:

…the bosses at Labatt Breweries in St. John’s apparently thought it was a good idea to instruct their employees to train workers who would replace them in the event of a strike. The employees refused and walked out, and are currently on a wildcat strike. The mind reels, and then reels some more upon news that a judge ordered the workers to stop interfering in Labatt’s daily business because, he said, they would do the company irreparable harm. Apparently, in a globalized knowledge economy, being replaced on the job does not qualify as doing irreparable harm to a worker.

We have to also be mindful, of course, that being a good brewer does not automatically entitle you to be considered as a good employer. You will recall how in 2011, Rogue of Oregon was the subject of “a devastating article about how Rogue Brewery treats its workers” to quote Jeff. Like any good consumer, that was the last time I bought any of their beer but, to be honest, anti-union tactics is something of a norm. But asking local workers to train their own foreign import replacements? Notice that a Canadian bank has been accused of the same thing this week. Which has led to an apology from now sweaty browed president and CEO Gord Nixon as clients are voting with their feet and withdrawing their deposits.

We clearly have a problem with any law that allows this. And any community that condones it. Will Canadians walk on Labatt, too? I hope so. Most likely in Newfoundland where the policy hits home most closely and people have an aversion to being led. They are not called the masterless men for nothing. One would hope these things would matter more generally, too. I do appreciate when Ethan points out that, hey, it’s capitalism but one needs to recall that capitalism is about trade and, frankly, turns on the principle “buyer beware.” As in be wary. Be aware. Know who and what you are dealing with. And appreciate, as Nixon now knows, that it is the consumer who defines what is appropriate within the construct of capitalism, not the law or business.

Big US Craft Apparently Has Bifurcated Lobbyitus

Interesting piece on the impending decisions to be made in relation to Federal excise taxation for beer in the US over at MSN Money today:

…The Brewer’s Employment and Excise Relief (BEER) Act, which is promoted by Washington-based beer industry group The Beer Institute, is expected to be introduced later this year and would reduce excise taxes on beer produced by brewers large and small. Past versions of the bill recommended cutting the tax from $18 per barrel to $9 for large brewers while also cutting the tax for small brewers from $7 per barrel to $3.50.

The competing Small Brewer Reinvestment and Expanding Workforce, or Small BREW Act, promoted by craft beer industry group The Brewers Association would cut the federal excise tax on beer from $7 a barrel to $3.50, which is placed on a small brewer’s first 60,000 barrels produced per year. After that initial 60,000 barrels, small brewers must pay $18 per barrel, which would be lowered to $16 under the bill. More importantly, it would expand the tax code definition for a “small brewer” from one that produces 2 million barrels or less to one that produces 6 million or less.

See, this is how relationships end. As the article describes, brewers like Boston Beer Co and Sierra Nevada are active members of both the Beer Institute and the Brewers Association which are lobbying for distinct and conflicting tax regimes. Not sure that this in itself is enough to create “a rift in the beer industry that could signal last call for the ‘craft’ title” as the author suggests but the implications are interesting. First, the government has to decide the matter one way or another. There cannot be two systems of the one excise tax. Second, the actual small craft brewers who make up the majority of the Brewers Association may soon have to decide whether being led by big craft brewers who look a lot like big macro brewers makes any sense. Either way, it won’t be controlled by big craft.

It would be comforting to know that this question was actually being discussed at the Craft Brewers Conference but the Twitter feed for #CBC13 has all the diversity of first night at summer cult camp. Crazy kids. They just can’t stop marketing – even to each other! One can hope that Congress’s governing leaders will have the sense to reject the idea of including the expansion of 2 to 6 million barrel definition of “small”. It is all fun and stuff but, given the state of the nation’s finances, buying into that sort of belief system isn’t very helpful especially given the clear focus offered by the Beer Institute’s characterization of the implications as “a giveaway to a handful of brewers that each are worth more than a billion dollars.” A billion? That’s a large number.

And Steve Is The Crown-In-Parliament, Too

Today’s news speaks to some fairly basic constitutional ideas:

The Harper government said Monday it will not include Governor-General David Johnston in any future policy discussions with First Nations, further clouding its battle of wills with aboriginal leaders. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said Monday Stephen Harper will meet with Assembly of First Nations’ National Chief Shawn Atleo “in the coming weeks,” and has no plans to abide aboriginal leaders’ demands for a summit Thursday. “[First Nations people] are very insistent on having the Governor-General there, but the Governor-General says this is a policy matter with the government and that [he] shouldn’t be there,” Andrew MacDougall said. “We agree with that.”

This is interesting stuff. What is a Prime Minister and what is a Governor-General? In his book Federalism and the Constitution of Canada, David E. Smith uses the proper name of one institution the Prime Minister leads: the Crown-in-Parliament. Even though the Glorious Revolution of 1688 changed a lot of the constitutional principles it did not great autonomous spheres of power so much as rearrange the existing ones. As a result, Smith can write:

Sovereignty in a constitutional monarchy rests in the Crown-in-Parliament (or, legislature), except where the subject is the reserve powers (dissolution of Parliament, for instance) that remain as a matter of prerogative in the hands of the Crown’s representative.

So, unless the topic is one reserved to the G.-G., it is a matter of Parliamentary oversight. In section 91 of our Constitution of 1867, part of the division of powers discussion it states “the exclusive Legislative Authority of the Parliament of Canada extends to all Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say,” and then lists a number of topics. It is generally taken that the list serves to distinguish between the Federal level and the Provincial one but the assignment of the classes of subjects is to the Parliament of Canada. Item number 24 in the list is “Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians.” Later in the constitution it states under the heading “Treaty Obligations” that:

The Parliament and Government of Canada shall have all Powers necessary or proper for performing the Obligations of Canada or of any Province thereof, as Part of the British Empire, towards Foreign Countries, arising under Treaties between the Empire and such Foreign Countries.

Interestingly, as Smith points out in his book, this only means that the Feds have the power to conclude treaties not to implement them. Where the subject matter is not in the list of subject matters assigned to the Federal Parliament, it is up to the Provinces to implement. And, in any event, the power relates to foreign countries. What was the nature of the “in Empire” domestic treaty that the British and then Canada happily signed from East to West as European Canada asserted itself? Mr. Harper is asserting that whatever it is, it is something that section 91(24) assigns to Parliament and he is the head of Parliament. Clearly an argument available to be made. Because he, like the G.-G. represents the Crown in his own way, too.

Pass Peter’s Pewter Pottle Pot, Please!

pottle

In my quest for objects out of which to drink ale, I have a 1940s ceramic part pint, an 1840s pewter quart pot and have declared 2013 the year of the 1700s etched ale glass. But, what ho! Something came before my eye today that I had not only never seen before but never had heard of – the pottle! Not an actual pottle but just the concept.

As you can see, that is archaic word for a half-gallon. The image above is a handy illustration from the entry for “Ale” in 1725’s smash best selling book Dictionaire oeconomique: or, The family dictionary. Containing the most experienced methods of improving estates and of preserving health, with many approved remedies for most distempers of the body of man, cattle and other creatures…. You will have to excuse me for deleting more than half the title but you get the hint. But now you know that there are 16 pottles to a firkin. That’s knowledge, baby.

There are a few references to pewter pottle pots on Google mainly referencing legal cases where a whole bunch of things are listed as being stolen or being in a will. In 1267, it is recorded in The Court Rolls of Ramsey, Hepmangrove, and Bury that a number of naughty brewsters of Ramsey were brought before the rather ripely named William De Wassingle – who I have no doubt was called “Assingle” behind his back – to pay fines and pledge security. Earlier in the day there was a far more interesting case which is recorded as follows:

6 d. from Emma Powel for making unclean puddings, as presented in the last view. Pledge: Simon de Elysworth. Order that henceforth she not make pudding.

You wag, Assingle. Anyway, in the brewster cases on that day, the security pledged against failure to pay the fine included many pottles. Four centuries later but still over 350 years ago, in 1659, the court heard an action of trover and conversion brought against one Gervase Maplesden by one Gabriel Beckraan for a number of things including one pewter gallon pot, one pewter quart pot, one pewter pottle pot and one pewter pint pot. Battlin’ pewterers action! Nothing like it.

But where are the pottle pots now? Not only can I find none on the internets for sale but none even pictured. Can you send an image to one of these massive drinking vessels? Have you ever seen one?

The Greatest Cease And Desist Letter Ever!!!

And just in time for Christmas…

Normally, one would not like a cease and desist letter claiming that one had breached someones intellectual property rights. I mean we as bloggers are supposed to get all hot and bothered about these things, right? We’re living in the post-legal mash up paradise promised by the Boingsters back when blogs were new, right?? Well, that all came crumbling down yesterday when the following love letter popped into my inbox:

The undersigned declares under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to act on behalf of the above referenced author, the owner of copyright in the Intellectual Property, and Hachette Book Group, Inc., the exclusive US publisher of the Intellectual Property, including without limitation, the cover and other art incorporated therein (collectively, the “IP Owner”). I have a good faith belief that the materials identified below are not authorized by the IP Owner, her agent, or the law and therefore infringe the IP Owner’s rights according to federal and state law. Accordingly, we hereby demand that you immediately remove and/or disable access of the infringing material identified below.

Frig, said I. I am a lawyer. I know when the jig is up. For a second, it was like the ending of “The Public Enemy” and I was Jimmy Cagney. But when I looked at the link I knew what was going on. See, six years ago, I posted about how great it was that I had found the text to a 1987 article in The Atlantic magazine called “A Glass of Handmade” by William Least Heat Moon, a bit of writing that was my introduction to thinking about good beer. And I tucked away a copy of the text in the articles section of this blog because I was sure it was fluke that I had found it and that I would never find it again, assuming all copies of that issue had long been sent to the dump or lodged in the back of a barbershop I would never visit. Flash forward six years and, once I realized what was going on, I removed the article from public view and, just like that, me and the lawyers at Hachette Book Group were at peace. In fact, they were quite nice about it and let me know what is going on and it is good news:

Thanks for removing the essay from your site. We appreciate it! And, yes, it is included in Here, There, Elsewhere which comes out on January 8th.

So, now no need to have the article squirreled away from fear it would disappear from knowledge. You can get your own copy of Here, There, Elsewhere: Stories from the Road by William Least Heat-Moon on discounted pre-order from Amazon right now. A little late for Christmas but as important an essay on early US craft beer as there is. I can’t encourage you to get your own copy enough.

And I can confirm that this endorsement is not part of any legal settlement!

Is Good and Craft Beer Really A Form Of Temperance?

Yesterday, Jeff reviewed the stated purposes of Oregon’s Liquor Control Act of 1934 as part of an exploration of the regulation of strong drink in his state. Lew has been writing along a similar line for some time on his separate blog Why The PLCB Should Be Abolished. Cass has been running a similar campaign here in Ontario at FreeOurBeer.ca. I like these campaigns as anyone should who lives in a jurisdiction with a sensory lab. It is, after all, just beer.

But one of the odder things about the good beer discussion is sometimes a bit of pressure to sing of the same song sheet. When I posed a category titled “Beer Bloggers Against Drunk Driving” there is a bit of a chilly response, the idea that one ought not to introduce anything negative into the conversation. One should not have a strong opposite view that asks why good beer might be a wee bit obsessively too central to the world view of those who write about it. It is, after all, a drug.

All that comes to mind for me when I look at the values Oregonianites captured in that law of 1934, we see words that sit in a middle ground, that challenge me to ask how I think about them now almost 80 years later:

(a) To prevent the recurrence of abuses associated with saloons or resorts for the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
(b) To eliminate the evils of unlicensed and unlawful manufacture, selling and disposing of such beverages and to promote temperance in the use and consumption of alcoholic beverages.
(c) To protect the safety, welfare, health, peace and morals of the people of the state.

I have been thinking about words like these a bit lately. They don’t seem to me as bad as the discussion might have led us to believe. In the comments following his post, Jeff raised the spectre of that darling of pre-WWI American prohibitionists, Carrie Nation. I noted that Carrie Nation was not a proponent of temperance but of abstinence. See, my point is that preventing abuse, promoting temperance as well as protecting peace and morals is pretty much what much of western culture wants when it goes to work or mows the front lawn or sends the kids to school. Which may mean we have to consider that in the end maybe temperance won and much of western culture is the better for it. None one advocates for abuse, intemperance, peacelessness and immorality. Of course not, no more than you would support other scourges of 1800s life like child labour or lack of public health. We underestimate or dismiss how more widespread and heavier drinking was then compared to now and how it may have come smashing into conflict with industrialized urban life.

So, is good beer the natural descendant of the temperance movement? Just as lower alcohol lager was presented as a temperance drink in the latter 1800s, is tastier beer now conveying the notion that mass produced beer need not be mass consumed? This is not to say that the liquor control boards should not be undone. I want to buy my beer in cornerstores and gas stations in Ontario like I can in nearby Quebec and New York. But should we reject all? What values can you not support? What regulations would you keep?

Vic… Let Me Tell You A Little Something About Me

Canadian Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews has found himself caught in a 1998 style flame war that would be the pride of usenet. As the Federation devolves, this is the sort of thing that entertains. Most fun is not the fact that it appears his nemesis is related to an opposition party but the surprise experienced by so many Canadians this evening that someone in the opposition has the gumption – I said it, gumption – to, you know, oppose:

An IP address connected to what is known as the Vikileaks30 Twitter account — which has been burning up the Twittersphere with claims about Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ personal life — originates within the House of Commons. In a bid to determine the origin of the account, which posted a string of tweets online offering alleged details relating to Toews’s divorce proceedings, the Ottawa Citizen undertook an investigation on Thursday. An email was sent to the writer of the Vikileaks30 Twitter account, containing a link to a website. The website was monitored by the Citizen and only the author of Vikileaks30 had the address of the website. About 15 minutes after sending the email, Vikileaks30 opened the link and visited the page, leaving behind an IP address that belongs to the House of Commons.

Sadly, the needy CBC hipster class of Canadian sees all and learns nothing, considering it “…lovable inclusiveness…a very Canadian kind of protest.” Mr. Taylor is really only upset that his gang did not think of it first.

Friday Bullets For The Week Of The Blackout

The power went out. From 3 pm to midnight yesterday. Sat around in one room for the evening and marveled at the power of the battery. I tweeted and listened to radio. Ice was to blame. Ice from the sky. Fortunately, it appears to have rained all night washing away the coating. A few trees in the neighbourhood fell. Now, there is good reason to have those ribs in the freezer:

♦ I like beer as much as the next guy. Probably more. But I am not sure why one of Ontario’s less interesting brewers deserved $1,000,000 in tax support annually.
♦ Really? I assume the PM does not know every implication of every Federal legal brief. And besides. If the brief was correct in relation to same sex marriage, it also means that the same is true for different sex marriage – if you don’t meet a foreign level of consanguinity in your home country, a Canadian marriage would not be valid. No one believes that.
♦ Let’s be clear, then. I am the guy who backed Harper this week, not the National Post. No Senate reform, please. No need to entirely lock up Federal governance, Steve.
♦ Scots apparently are not free to make up their minds. Time to revive the Declaration of Arbroath. “It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.” Makes you weepy just thinking about it.

There. Done. Gotta work one more day before the gorging of rib fest begins. Thanks, blackout, for reminding me to make time for ribs.

Friday Bullets For Your Labour Day Weekend

You better be meditating on the benefits we all share from the labour union movement this weekend. “Sure, I’ll take the day off but don’t you dare think for a minute that I like unions.” I can hear you. You hypocritical holidaying ingrates. Me, I will be singing “The International” and all my Billy Bragg 45s and calling everyone I meet comrade or maybe even Leonid.

⇒ WATCH OUT! SPACE JUNK!!!

⇒ Glad that’s cleared up. Italians are now “ethnics” under the rural overlords world view. Next, Scots and Irish and soon New Brunswickers.

⇒ Ernie Eves busts out against those Ontario Tea Party Tory bastards: “I don’t think it was fair and I don’t think it was loyal and I don’t think it was compassionate and I don’t think it’s honest.” Crime: voting for someone. Now, that’s a Tory: anti-democratic and proud of it.

⇒ I have no idea how sad it must be to be a Blue Jays fan. I mean, it’s like they think the team doesn’t suck. See, being a Leafs fan, I know they suck.

⇒ Do we now feel a twinge of guilt for reveling in Conrad’s fall? I will give him this – there is no one else reporting honestly on the state of the back end of the justice system like he is.

Ahh… long weekend. I needed it. I earned it. Really did. Didn’t I. I didn’t? Who says?

When To Have That Beer In Zimbabwe In 2012?

Laws around beer reflect cultural norms both in how they regulate and how they express norms that are unregulated. Consider this proposed reform to the hours of sale law of Zimbabwe:

The Ministry of Health and Child Welfare is crafting its own alcohol policy, which might alter the tough proposals by President Robert Mugabe’s health advisor, Timothy Stamps. Stamps has forwarded to Cabinet a policy document that seeks to force supermarkets, shops and bottle stores to sell alcoholic drinks between 6am and 7pm, while the selling of beer would be banned after mid-day on Sunday.

That comes off as a bit odd. Clearly breakfast time drinking is OK there. Here in Ontario, you can’t serve a beer before 11 am in a licensed establishment even if you can drink well past midnight. But in each case, you get over 12 hours stretch of imbibing. In Kenya you only get six hours. Alaskans get 21 hours in a row – why bother shutting at all?