EDITORIALS
Expand wine sales to supermarkets
Beyond revenue, state should focus on boosting wineries, equalizing rules
In making good wine, timing is everything. For the 2,600 or so (mostly) small businesses that now enjoy a legal monopoly on the sale of wine in New York, there is no good time to change the rules.
They fear the loss of that monopoly will put many of them out of business. An industry study a few years ago sees 1,000 store closings and 4,000 lost jobs if food markets gain the right to sell wines.
This issue has been debated before, but it has momentum now. That momentum comes from the state’s need for money. There are strong arguments on both sides, but in the end the state should allow supermarket wine sales—and not just for the projected state revenues.
Gov. David A. Paterson wants to change the rules for the first time since the end of Prohibition to allow the sale of wine in as many as 28,000 of the state’s grocery and convenience stores. He’s not making a moral or theoretical statement. He’s in it for the cash, hoping to uncork $159 million over three years in fees from stores that would rush to get into the wine market.
It’s mostly a one-shot, as a little more than $100 million of that would come from the high initial fees charged when businesses first amend existing beer licenses to add the sale of wine. When those licenses are renewed, the estimated take to the state drops to only about $3 million annually. And the trade-off could be a fatal shot to many of the state’s liquor stores, or so the store owners understandably worry.
But there is evidence from the other 35 states that do allow supermarket wine sales that wineries can benefit and that the impact would not be that draconian on smaller stores, which still would hold a monopoly on liquor sales and still can offer better selections, knowledgeable sales staff and better service. New York now ranks 47th in the number of places per capita where wine can be bought, and states with supermarket sales also have more liquor stores.
If supermarket customers gain the right to buy a little wine with their cheese, though, antiquated liquor store rules also should be changed to allow customers there to buy a little cheese with their wine—or crackers, beer, chips, glassware, gift bags and other items such stores are not now allowed to sell. And wine sale hours also should be equal.
Most businesses—restaurants, hardware stores, newspapers— also are threatened by economic changes, and yet they neither seek nor receive legal immunity from competition. Liquor store owners are campaigning fiercely to preserve the status quo, arguing everything from the loss of their livelihoods and the life savings that are tied up in their stores to the threat, also a concern of police agencies, of increased underage drinking or drunken driving. Those arguments must be taken seriously, but at base the industry’s argument is one of tradition and a belief that a liquor store license is a kind of property right, one earned through nearly a century of performing a state function, controlling the flow of intoxicating beverages.
The issue also has driven a wedge between different camps among the state’s growing complement of wineries. Some would be thrilled to have more outlets for their product, and are allied with such supermarket chains as Wegmans and Tops to become part of their drive to feature New York-grown groceries. Others fear that if the big boys take over the retail wine market, they will stock only the best-known national and global brands, ignoring one of the biggest success stories in New York agriculture.
If New York retailers did ignore New York wineries, they would be committing an act of astounding stupidity.
Reported experiences elsewhere suggest that more wine sales are good news for home-state wine makers and their suppliers, where new jobs could easily overwhelm any losses from liquor stores closings.
That’s been the case in Washington, a state that has seen its own wine industry more than triple, surpassing New York’s as the second largest in the nation, after the number of retail outlets there was increased. And grocers, who already have established their ability to safely handle the sale of beer, seem equal to the task of legally selling wine, a product that is a distant second to beer as the beverage of choice for drunken drivers.
Wine is supposed to maketh a heart glad, not give Albany heartburn. The market seems big enough for everyone, and all should benefit from a new, more rational, system.
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