The OLCC is putting the kaibosh on a local vineyard’s attempt to actually do something cool. AgriVino Wine Center recently installed a fancy-pants new tasting room, complete with a self-serve wine tasting machine. From the McMinnville News-Register:

AgriVino offered visitors the opportunity to get a taste of and detailed information about Yamhill Wine Country before they ventured out into it. At the core of the operation was the Enomatic wine dispensing and preservation system.

This Italian-made device, legal for use in California and most other states, consists of individual units or stations holding up to eight wines each. The machines read a prepaid smart card that allows a maximum of 10 one-ounce pours over a two-hour period.

Licensed employees oversee the operation, offering advice, answering questions, disseminating information and controlling issuance of the cards. But customers insert the card and push the button to dispense the selected wine themselves.

Can you see where this is going? That’s right, those jackleg panty-waists over at the OLCC issued the ol’ “cease and desist” letter to AgriVino, saying that the machine violated their rules against self-service. Hat tip to Blue Oregon, which included this whopper of an opening paragraph:

As a good lefty, I have a natural affinity for government.  I think it tends to support the smooth function of society in a way that would be inconceivable without it. But even I have moments when certain actions by certain agencies raise my libertarian dander.  It seems like the OLCC is often that certain agency, and we have a recent, certain action that is a case in point for dander-raising.

Can you really love government and then start crying when it stomps all over your balls?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 11:56 am by CJ Ciaramella and is filed under Booze, OLCC, Things That Infuriate Ossie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.