It’s not just sour grapes.
Most New Yorkers want the option of buying wine in grocery stores and bodegas — and they may finally see things change after years where all they could do was red-red whine.
A new state bill would make it legal for supermarkets to stock wine, upending a longstanding restriction that limits most sales to liquor stores and has many shoppers confused over why it even exists.
“The liquor stores probably want to create a monopoly,” Jamaica, Queens mechanic Anthony Green said laughing.
“They both can do their thing … no need to shut anybody out.”
An eye-popping 83% of New York City voters said they support allowing supermarkets to sell wine — as do 78% of all residents statewide, according to a new poll.
The survey, conducted by Siena College, shows the growing support to boost accessibility to the fermented grape is going to make it more difficult to limit where wine can be sold.
The question is whether lawmakers will act this year after previous efforts have ended with politicians putting a cork in the debate with no action.
“We support selling wine in our grocery stores. It would expand the brand of wine — particularly wine made in New York State,” said John Catsimatidis, whose Red Apple Group owns the Gristedes Supermarket chain.
Big Apple grocery stores already sell beer and even some wine with low alcohol content.
Forty other states — including the District of Columbia — already allow wine sales in their grocery stores, advocates say.
But not everyone is ready to toast to upending the current law.
Liquor store merchants are digging in their heels, not willing to give up their exclusivity without a fight.
One booze merchant said grocery stores should stay in their lane and sell food, and let liquor store owners sell wine and spirits.
“I am totally against it. We are liquor stores, that’s our business, that’s what we sell. Let us handle it,” Jimmy Kishor, manager at Best Liquors on Hillside Avenue.
“They should stick to selling food. We can’t sell food. We can’t sell water. We can’t sell beverages. We can only sell liquor and wine. The bottom line is why should they sell our products if we can’t sell theirs?”
Previous efforts to change the law may have been sunk by simple politics.
Industry sources said liquor merchants had a powerful ally that politicians, mostly Republicans and some Democrats, were unwilling to cross. Longtime chairman of the state Conservative Party Mike Long, who died in 2022, was a Brooklyn liquor store owner.
Politicians coveting the backing of the Conservative Party in order to nab an extra ballot line may have not wanted to come into conflict with the leader, as extra ballot lines could often be the difference in swing suburban and upstate districts, insiders said.
But Fanny Maldonado, who owns the 947 Deli Grocery in Jamaica, Queens, said the more wine available, the merrier.
“If I want to sell it, I should be allowed,” said Maldonado, who sells a few low-alcohol wine beverages.
The “New York State of Wine” coalition — which includes grocery stores, the Farm Bureau representing wineries and the New York State Business Council — lauded the overwhelming public support to expand access to wine.
They are backing the latest legislation — sponsored by Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) and Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter (D-Syracuse) — that would allow New Yorkers to buy wine in grocery stores and encourage the sale of New York-made wines by slashing the stores’ annual license renewal fees based on their sales.
The measure, if approved, restricts the sales to grocery stores with a minimum of 5,000 square feet of floor area.
This provision eliminates smaller convenience stores, drug stores, gas station mini-marts and corner delis/bodegas.
Also, 65% of a store’s sales must be food-related to sell wine, thus eliminating big-box retailers and superstores – which may have grocery sections.
The restrictions would reduce the number of stores eligible to sell wine from 9,000 in prior legislation to 1,900.
Meanwhile, the bill could open up new opportunities for New York winemakers and grape growers to sell their products.
New York is the third largest wine producing state in the country after California and Washington and has the four most wineries.
But very few wines made from the Finger Lakes and Long Island are showcased in liquor stores in America’s largest market, New York City, as The Post previously reported.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
