Yesterday the Arkansas House of Representatives advanced a bill that would ban wine produced in California as a response to California’s ban on eggs from morbidly obese chickens, some that a certain producer based in Arkansas loves. Bill sponsor Rep. Dan Douglas says he never expected the bill to pass, but then we never expected a lot of the crazy bills to pass either this session.
In 2013 California made $23.1 billion from domestic wine sales, during that same period Arkansas ranked 46th in wine consumption per capita.
While the the bill would ban have next to no impact on California’s wine industry, Californian wine makes up 90% of total wine sales in Arkansas. The impact would only be felt in Arkansas businesses such as liquor stores, restaurants, and wine distributors not to mention the impact on Arkansas citizens who are now forced to overpay for imported wine or discover lesser quality wines from areas outside of California (or anywhere else that cares about animal rights).
But why stop at wine? What other California products can they ban as well to make this even more ridiculous? We compiled a list:
Apple Products – The smartphone, computer, and tablet brand of choice in the natural state. Flip over your phone and you will see those five evil words: “Designed by Apple in California”. Don’t worry, you can still get a number of Windows products (headquartered in Washington), don’t go for Android because they are made by ….
Google – “No Search for You!”. California based Google not only has the world’s most popular search engine, but also (judging by analytics) most likely the desktop browser (Chrome) you use, the phone operating system (Android) many use, along with a number of other products such as YouTube and gmail.
Facebook – After we completely rid ourselves of California products you will most likely not read any Rock City material. 99.9 percent of our traffic comes from Facebook, Google, and Twitter (San Francisco based).
Year Around Fruit – You do not really think those strawberries you bought after the ice storm earlier this month were grown in Arkansas do you? Most domestic seasonal fruit is grown in the chicken hating state of California.
There is one thing we can ban that would put a hurt on California…
50 Shades of Grey – Arkansas ranked 49th in total ticket sales for the recent erotic book-turned-film 50 Shades of Grey. The movie was produced by California studio Focus Features and distributed by California based Universal Pictures. You can still read the books however from the English born author published by a New York based company.