With the Legislature nearing the end of this year’s session, the liquor-store lobby is working feverishly to stifle a bill to let supermarkets and other large grocers sell wine — just like in 40 other states.
Mom-and-pop stores will close, the lobbyists claim. Hah! They predicted the same doom from letting bars sell “to-go” drinks during COVID.
The public isn’t scared. A recent Siena survey found that voters across all demographics overwhelmingly support grocery-store wine sales: 70% in the city, 77% in the NYC ‘burbs, 79% upstate.
The bill applies only to full-service grocery stores, excluding big-box retailers, superstores, convenience stores and drug stores.
And it contains incentives to sell New York wines, from Finger Lakes whites to North Fork reds.
So captive is the State Liquor Authority to the industry big boys, it’s blocked efforts to market and sell locally-grown wine.
“It’s a very rigged system. I was shot down. I thought there would be more enthusiasm for selling New York wines,” Forest Hills wine bar owner Ollie Sakhno told The Post last October of his effort to open a store selling wines made in New York.
The industry even owns the Commission to Study Reform of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law.
New York’s stuck with a host of petty laws dating from the immediate post-Prohibition years. Out-of-state vineyards still need a special license to ship to Empire State residences, for example.
It’s time to put a cork in the liquor-store lobby, and this entire antiquated system.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
