MOSCOW, April 25 (RAPSI) – Lawmaker Viktor Zvagelsky has submitted a bill to the State Duma to prohibit the online retail trade of alcohol, his press service announced.

In September 2013, the Federal Service for Alcohol Market Regulation proposed amending the law on the state regulation of the production and marketing of alcohol and the law on information to prohibit the online sale of alcohol and surrogate alcohol.

The current laws only impose location and time restrictions on the sale of alcohol. Under the bill, individual violators would be fined up to 5,000 rubles ($140) and corporate violators up to 1 million rubles ($27,830).

The existing ban on the remote sale of alcohol is “ineffective because we see a growing number of online announcements on the sale of alcohol during promotional campaigns,” Zvagelsky writes. “For example, you get a bottle of free alcohol if you buy a certain commodity.”  He also proposed blocking websites that sell alcohol.

The ban of any ads of alcohol products on the Internet and in printed media came into effect in Russia on January 1, 2013. The amendments were introduced to advertising law, and the legislation on the state regulation of the alcohol industry.