I spent most of today filling out forms so we can ship direct to certain states.

What a pain in the ass!

Every state has its own regulations.  Some are nice and easy, some make it extremely hard and some just don’t allow direct shipment.

Here is a list that I’ve been working on:

    WA: Great.  Nothing to do.  Of course, that’s because Rasa is a Washington state winery.
    FL: All states should be this easy.  Nothing to fill out.  There are 5 dry counties though.
    CA: Pretty easy to apply - one short form and a fee.
    OR: Another easy one but, like Texas, they require a $1000 surety bond.
    TX: I actually did this one earlier in the week.  You have to get a sales tax id first and have a $1000 surety bond before applying for the out-of-state direct shipper’s permit.  Not too bad.  The whole process takes about 14 days.
    NY: NY requires 3 types of permits.  I applied for a sales tax permit today.  Once I have that, I can apply for a direct shipper permit and a distributor permit.
    IN: In order to sell directly to Indiana, the consumer has to first visit your winery and make an onsite purchase.  Since I don’t know too many people from Indiana making the trek to Walla Walla to purchase wine, shipping direct is out of the question.  And that’s too bad since we have a lot of friends and family here.
                
    AZ: Another state that requires an onsite visit.
                
    NJ: No can do.  This is really a shame.  I grew up here.  I live here. 
    So many of my friends here want to buy directly from me.  Alas, no.
                 
    PA: No way.
    I now understand why there are companies that handle shipping compliance for wineries.