Great question! Great posts. Reminded me of all sorts of in-flight alcolholic beverage info I've gotten from flight attendants, much of it contradictory, and some of it outright unbelievable/ Like, how we're not allowed to be served alcohol upfront until after we take off. It's state law. That's strange, was it not also state law last week? So I Googled and was appalled at some of what I found. If any of you can make any sense of what laws really do apply to passenger aircraft (or any others) I'm all ears:
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http://blogs.usatoday.com/sky/2007/01/new_mexico_alco.html (this one appears to be from 2007 - no followup that I could find)
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Here's an excerpt from written ALPA testimnony to Congress in 1997. Most of it deals with airline response to ridiculous behavior by passengers but the comment about jurisdictional issues is relevant. (The writing could also have been a lot clearer!):
Internationally, the Tokyo Convention, formally known as the Convention on Offenses and Certain Other Acts Committed On Board Aircraft, which was signed in 1963 and now has 162 state signatories worldwide, establishes a number of legal remedies for passenger interference.
However, as expressed by ICAO last year, the Tokyo Convention has a shortcoming: "Since aircraft in flight are legally regarded as part of the territory of the state of registration of the aircraft, the state where the aircraft lands will treat offenses committed on board during the flight as committed on foreign territory (unless it is the state of registration of the aircraft). In most cases of minor offenses and ‘less serious’ crimes, it will, therefore, not have the jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute. The Tokyo Convention of 1963 obliges contracting states to establish their jurisdiction over offenses and crimes only when committed on board aircraft of their own nationality. There is no obligation in the Convention to establish jurisdiction with respect to offenses and crimes committed on board foreign aircraft. Furthermore, the Tokyo Convention does not establish such jurisdiction itself. It therefore leaves a jurisdictional gap in this respect."
This so-called jurisdictional gap does not pose a problem in the U.S. because, thankfully, our Justice Department prosecutes inbound offenders regardless of the nationality of the aircraft. In other countries, however, this situation does not exist which creates an opportunity for crimes to be committed aboard aircraft with no punitive action taken against the perpetrator.
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Here's the best one yet - dated 2009. Texas apprently thinks it has the right (and ability!) to collect fees from all airlines that fly over over the Great State of Texas in return for being allowed to carry (not even serve) alcoholic beverages. Right, so let's say an Avianca flight to JFK gets diverted by bad weather and mechanical and ends up landing in TEXAS, where (let's assume) Avianca does not now do business and so doesn;t pay the annual booze tax. Texas thinks it's going to collect the $4k or whatever? Have a look:
www.tabc.state.tx.us/Forms/Lic/L-102A.doc---
In summary, the OP raises some great issues. And ,as I said, if anyone thinks they understand how this part of the Universe actually operates, I'd love to hear about it.
Best wishes,
Phil
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