Duty free alcohol in truck

I don't think that,"THAT" DOT Officer knew what he was talking about! I have bought at the Duty free store at the top of the hill MANY MANY times. How it works there for a CMV is, When you purchase your allowable amount of booze they get your personal information from you. Then get your Truck Plate number/Company/Color of truck. They give you your receipt. You tell em when your ready to leave, they will tell you where to park & wait for them. The area that they tell you to wait at, is on the Canadian side of the no-mans land area between the borders. But from there, there is only ONE-WAY to go after you leave that area, and thats to the Canadian Border. So you wait there , they drive down to you in their little P/U truck. You give them your receipt, they give you your booze & the receipt thats stapled to the bag to show Canada Customs. You pull up to customs, do your paper work for the load, tell them what you bought while in the USA, & how long you were in the USA & total Value of goods purchased blah blah blah. From the time you parked you were really in Canada the whole time. Leave Customs, drive a mile to the scale that is WELL inside of the Canada & Alberta Border. Cross the scale & if need be, you deal with the Canadian Scale Man. If the USA Scale man/woman asks to deal with you on anything, tell them you'll be glad to talk to them, NEXT TIME your using That border crossing going into the USA.

 

I have seen the pickup and I expected that was what they were doing. I didn't bother to ask the officer about that. I do know lots of drivers buy booze in Shelby also, which could put them in jeopardy. To be fair, the enforcement officer didn't say he had seen the infraction, but that he was aware of it happening and it had been before he arrived there (I didn't ask how long ago that was). He did say it was a substantial amount that was poured out (he thought that was alcohol abuse ) so perhaps it was more related to the quantity and possible smuggling than just a personal exemption amount.

I agree about dealing with the Montana DOT, and I wouldn't be shy in telling them so. That arrangement bothers me; I bet that Montana and the U.S. feds wouldn't be so accommodating if we were looking to share space a mile inside their territory. I find it hard to believe any infraction written by the Montana DOT at that scale (if in fact they do... I don't know) would survive a serious court challenge.

 

A similar scam by DOT but not alcohol, I've seen them stake out near a fireworks store and wait for truckdrivers to leave, and then nail them for hazmat violations.

 

That scale has always been a joint AB-MT scale but not always in the same place. When the border crossing was some scrabble yellow buildings that scale was right on the border. Possibly MT paid part of the consruction cost or maintenance cost.

I was inspected there by MT last month. I had logged crossing the border on line 4, 15 minutes driving, and back on line 4 for the inspection. The inspection was done on a MT form. I spect somewhere down the road I will hear about not logging a MT inspection before crossing the border.

I recieved two overweight tickets, one from MT and one from ID, by ID DOT at the joint ID-MT scales on I-90 in MT. I fought it and was found guilty. ID DOT had been sworn in as special officers with authority in MT.

 

Long before the Mods were made to the buildings years ago, I crossed the scale at the some place it is at now? That was about 20 years ago.

 

A little harp music please. I was thinking back 30+ years, back before log books were required in Canada. I don't remember exactly when the border crossing buildings were changed. There were quite a few years I was up North and didn't cross there. They may have moved the scales before the crossing was changed, I just assumed because thet were both changed when I went through there they had been done at the same time. There wasn't a lot of traffic then. The crossing was similar to Eastport-Kingsgate today.

 

I guess that's one thing about trucking that really rankles me, being punished after the fact when they didn't even catch you in the act. I figure, if I get through MT scott-free there's no darn way it's fair that I should get punished in my home province... by an alien no less.

Like the time that twerp at the Lima, MT, scale gave me a violation for exceeding the speed limit in California (by about 0.75 mph). The part that really twisted me (aside from the fact he was giving me a violation for something that occured over a thousand miles and several states away) was the violation was based on a practical miles measurement and not actual. Using point-to-point, I was under the speed limit. Yeah, I was pretty frosted about that.

 

"I was thinking back 30+ years, back before log books were required in Canada." I Bow to you...But instead of harp music, I'll play you...

 

I don't believe these f******* Americans, they are weakest link, once Obama Hussien gets done with them, good riddance.

 

That whole arrangement at Coutts is illegal, if you ask me. Not to mention, and it gets extremely grey if that was ever ruled, but Duty Free Sweetgrass would be an accessory to the transportation of booze to a commercial truck in a No-Man's zone, or even the sole perpetrator. In fact that's what should be conveyed to the judge who heard the case. It isn't illegal in Canada to have liquor in a commercial vehicle, but is in the US. No Man;s land or not, Duty Free Coutts knowingly transported the alcohol to a waiting truck from Montana and technically, before the truck crossed the official border. MHP should be arresting Sweetgrass Duty Free. See, no matter how you work it, they are on the wrong side of the border.