Topic: Residents of Ohio, contact your representatives ASAP! (Read 1012 times)

I hope you can update with more news as this develops.
Also everyone in Ohio, please contact your state representatives.

Hello all. I am the organizer of the Bitcoin Boulevard event, and here is my original thread about this matter:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/244att/bitcoin_banned_for_alcohol_sales_in_state_of_ohio/

The reddit community had some valuable suggestions.

The ODPS has to stand by their statements, as this was made in our major newspaper, The Plain Dealer.

However, this decision was made late Friday and of course no one can be reached on weekends there. I contact the agent in charge Monday, and they are reviewing their position, hopefully in time for our event on Thursday.

Most of these merchants are using BitPay with 100% USD settlement. So, this is no different than accepting a foreign credit card. The transaction is between BitPay and the merchant, not the customer and the merchant, and this transaction is 100% USD. THIS is not what was passed down to the legal team at the state, even though it was thoroughly discussed. What was passed down was only the information about BTC-BTC direct wallet transactions, which only 1 merchant was hoping to do.

The agent gave me the opportunity to submit in my own words what needs to be conveyed, and I did this with support from BitPay, including additional information from BitPay themselves.

What I am hoping for now is a compromise. 1) No for BTC-BTC transactions for alcohol, as this would be barter, and is prohibited by current Ohio liquor law. 2) Yes for BTC-USD using 3rd party payment processor like BitPay, no different than foreign credit card transactions not originating in USD.

This is a work in progress, as to be expected.

This is also required part of the Bitcoin adoption process. It would be incredibly irresponsible not to include the regulators in this conversation, as the merchants' entire livelihood is at stake when it comes to liquor control violations.

As of 4:40pm Wednesday, we are still waiting for an answer as is the Press, which is all over this now. Wired just published an article too: http://www.wired.com/2014/04/bitcoin_beer/

I hope to have good news for everyone, otherwise this will energize a very interesting debate to a long time to come.

LOL I can see Bitcoin ATM's at every Liquor Store to solve the problem

Hey that is good for Bitcoin

Much ATM, many trade, wow! 

Guessing that this is a tax-fuelled restriction? What a load of horse shit.

I agree if you are in Ohio you need to get all over this.  I was going to set something up on change.org but not appropriate for a non-resident.

Technically are you really accepting bitcoin if the merchant is using a service like Bitpay that coverts the bitcoin to fiat currency anyway for the merchant.  Isn't that like saying that mastercard is not a currency and therefore cannot be used?  The merchant doesn't actually see fiat currency until 2-3 days later.  Before that it is just bytes in the ether.  No real currency exchanges immediately.

 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/MasterCard_early_1990s_logo.png

Logic 101!

So, it's illegal in Ohio to spend bitcoins on alcohol.
Yet it's perfectly okay to get a gift card with bitcoin and use THAT for alcohol?

the reason

edit: a few research and brain farts later i have come to the conclusion that beer is a patent of/regulated by government. so is fossil fuel products.. this is why a fossil fuel company was banned from accepting payment aswell as the bottlehouse brewing company, which this topic is all about.

basically they feel that IF fiat is not being used for all government products then they wont get as much tax, and that fiat will have less uses and breach some hidden contracts between government and the fed reserve in regards to keeping fiat in circulation.

im just wondering what other daily life products are government owned/regulated which are either obvious (needing licenses to produce/trade)  or obscure, that will be next on the line of 'products' that cannot be sold for bitcoin

obvious list:
cigarettes
pharmaceuticals
fire arms
government cheese

Neither beer nor Bitcoin is a gift card of any sort. If specific merchants don't want to allow the use of Bitcoin for whatever, then that's their right to do so. However, to ban the use of Bitcoin for the purchase of alcohol in the entire state is arbitrary to begin with (why just alcohol?) and a serious encroachment on people's freedom! If I have digital property which the government allows me to own, the IRS approves the exchange of it for goods and FinCEN has provided guidance for it, then how does the Ohio Department of Public Safety find it unsafe? It's completely arbitrary and frivolous!

yeah i was wondering this same thing
why does ohio make such a big deal about bitcoin and the taxation of it. in michigan ive never heard anything about it at all. is it just the political people actually know more about bitcoin or?

Why is this a big deal?

Its similar to the rule = you can't buy giftcards with other gift-cards, cash/credit only.


I'm not necessarily trying to troll - I just want a reasonable answer as to why this is a 'big deal' that alcohol is banned from btc purchases in ohio?

Due to the recent news that the Ohio Department of Public Safety has banned the use of Bitcoin for the purchase of alcohol, I recommend that all residents of Ohio should contact their representatives, their senator and the governor! This is VERY important, you can't let such frivolous and arbitrary actions be taken by the Ohio Department of Public Safety. People are free to owe whatever digital property they want and they should be free to exchange it for whatever goods they want. The IRS approves it, FinCEN approves it, the entire country approves it, yet the Ohio Department of Public Safety does not!

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/248p8j/residents_of_ohio_please_contact_your/

Cheers,
Kiril Gantchev
CEO of BitLendingClub, LLC
www.bitlendingclub.com