Court Opinion

ID: 7822458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-07 17:59:26.45562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:30:46.296793
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. I believe the Chancellor was correct in holding that foreign wines are included in the definition of alcoholic beverages and, hence, subject to the 10% supplemental gross receipts tax in the Mixed Drink Act of 1969. In 1965 the legislature passed Act 120, permitting the sale of native wines under certain conditions. Native wines were carefully defined as having no more than 14% alcohol and made in Arkansas from grapes or other fruits and vegetables grown in Arkansas. Next, the Mixed Drink Act of 1969 [Act 132] was enacted which subjected all alcoholic beverages except beer and native wine to the supplemental sales tax imposed under Section 8 of the act. Then, in 1971, Act 441 was passed which included amendments to Act 120 of 1965, one of which defined wine as not more than 14% alcohol “regardless of whether such wines are manufactured within or without the State of Arkansas.” The stated purpose of Act 441 was to promote Arkansas wineries and tourism by permitting the transportation of limited quantities of wines through dry counties of the state by tourists without their being in violation of laws and regulations restricting such transportation. Nothing in the act suggests it was intended to affect the Mixed Drink Act by altering the definition of alcoholic beverages. A very similar statutory process was examined in Bolar v. Cavaness, 271 Ark. 69, 607 S.W.2d 367 (1980), where we held that where a provision of an existing statute is specifically adopted by a later statute, as distinguished from adopting the law generally in force on that subject, the operation of the later statute will not be affected by the still later repeal of the original statute. Thus, if statute A is specifically adopted in part by statute B, without an adoption of the general law on the subject, the subsequent repeal of statute A does not change statute B. To analogize, statute A [Act 120 of 1965] permitted the limited sale of native wine; statute B [Act 132 of 1969] granted local option for the sale of all alcoholic beverages except beer and native wines, subject to a supplemental 10% sales tax; statute C [Act 441 of 1971] permitted the transportation of wines in Arkansas which would otherwise be illegal and amended statute A to make all wines subject to statute C. Under the reasoning of Bolar v. Cavaness, the enactment of statute C does not operate to take foreign wines outside the effect of statute B. George Rose Smith, J., joins in this dissent.