Beer Across America settles Utah criminal charges

Modern Brewery Age, Feb 21, 2000

Associated Press--A mail-order beer supplier in Illinois settled criminal charges in Utah by agreeing Monday to pay a $27,000 fine for selling beer here.

Beer Across America stopped doing business in Utah in February 1997 when the state seized 100 of its shipments and Attorney General Jan Graham charged the company and its president with importing beer without a license.

The Utah Court of Appeals had ruled the company could be prosecuted, overturning a lower-court ruling that said the company's Illinois-based sales were legal.

It is illegal under Utah law for anyone other than a licensed dealer to import even the smallest quantities of alcohol. The United States Supreme Court refused to take up the company's appeal.

That left the beer-of-the-month club with little choice but to take a plea bargain, even though it says Utah is the only state to prosecute the company for shipping beer across state lines.

"We disputed all of the charges but reached a settlement," Louis A. Amoroso, president of Beer Across America Inc., said Monday.

Beer Across America offended Utah sensibilities on another count by shipping regular beer containing more than 3.2 percent alcohol, which may be sold only by or through the state.

Amoroso said he will not be left with a criminal record as part of the settlement. His lawyer relayed a guilty plea Monday in 3rd District Court to unlawful importation and sale of alcohol, a pair of class B misdemeanors.

The charges will be dropped in a year after Amoroso fulfills the terms of the settlement, which call for him to pay a $1,000 fine on both charges, a $5,000 court fine and make a $20,000 payment to the Utah State Department of Public Safety for liquor enforcement efforts.

Graham took credit for a "significant win" that maintains state control of alcohol.

"No longer can retailers claim that we have no authority over illegal transactions that occur outside the state," Graham said. "If you're shipping to a Utah resident, we can and will prosecute you."

Graham also claimed that Beer Across America, which sells beer from a Web site, was selling to Utah minors. But Amoroso disputed that charge, and Graham dropped it as part of the plea agreement.

Last March, the Utah Court of Appeals ruled that Utah may prosecute companies that ship alcohol across state lines.

The decision reversed a finding by 3rd District Judge Robert K. Hilder that the company's sales occurred, in Illinois, where they were legal.

The three-judge Court of Appeals said the company is subject to prosecution in Utah for conduct committed in Illinois that caused an "unlawful result in Utah."

Prosecutors argued that mail-order liquor sales--estimated at about $1 billion nationwide--would undermine state control of alcohol.

The appeals court cited the 21st Amendment, which reinstated alcohol sales after Prohibition. The amendment also gave states the right to regulate liquor sales within their borders--a right the court said outweighed Beer Across America's rights to do interstate business under the Constitution's Commerce Clause.