DOVER, Del.- Delaware Gov. John Carney on Tuesday signed House Bill 284 into action, allowing customers to take an opened bottle of wine home from wineries.
Before this new legislation, if a customer purchased a bottle of wine at a winery in the First State and drank some of it, they were not allowed to take the rest home.
"I think the big thing is consumers generally don't understand. Because if you're a Delaware resident you can go to any restaurant and do this, cork it, take it home. If you're a Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania resident, again same thing. So this is really odd that a winery doesn't allow you to cork it and take it home," said Adrian Mobilia, owner of Salted Vines Vineyard & Winery in Franford.
Mobilia said it's sometimes uncomfortable to tell frustrated customers that they weren't allowed to take home something they bought at his winery. He explains it wasn't even an oversight by state lawmakers, because the alcohol laws were written before wineries existed in Delaware.
Mobilia says the law will also help improve safe driving.
"This is good for a lot of reasons, but mostly it's to help curb over-service and drinking and driving. We don't want people doing that so we'd rather them come only have a glass or two here then take the rest home for consumption later on that evening, or the next day or whatever," Mobilia said.
Director of the Division of Small Business Linda Parkowski agrees. She hopes people will be able to consume what they're comfortable with, now that the law has taken affect.
"You don't have to finish drinking the entire bottle of wine, you can take half of it home and not feel like you have to finish it," Parkowski said.
Parkowski says now wineries are on the same playing field as every other business in Delaware.
