With potentially more than $100 mil lion in new revenue dangling be fore their eyes, lawmakers in Al bany may finally do New Yorkers a favor – and let groceries sell wine.
We’ll raise a glass to that.
New York is one of only 15 states that ban wine sales anywhere but in liquor stores, though groceries can sell beer.
This bizarre rule dates back to Prohibition. But it’s left the state with just 2,700 nonrestaurant retail wine-sale venues – for nearly 20 million residents.
The result: New York is one of the least convenient places in America to buy wine. (With just shy of twice New York’s population, California boasts 10 times the number of wine-retail outlets.)
New Yorkers pay more, too – thanks to the lack of competition. Lifting the outdated ban would boost the number of venues tenfold, proponents predict, saving consumers some $80 million a year.
And by licensing new outlets, the state can quickly produce a cool $100 million in licensing fees, to help plug a $14 billion budget hole. Albany’s drunken sailors should love that idea.
Of course, most New Yorkers like it, too: Some 68 percent say they want to be able to buy wine in grocery stores.
Who wouldn’t?
Actually, there is a group opposed. Yup, you guessed it: liquor-store owners, who now hold a monopoly on retail sales.
To fight the reform, they’ve invented a few excuses: Underage drinking will soar, they claim – though teens tend to buy beer, not wine, and that’s already sold in groceries.
Liquor stores, facing new competition, may close, they say – killing jobs.
Maybe. But even more new jobs will pop up to help distribute, market, stock and sell the product at the new outlets.
Indeed, demand for New York-produced wine is likely to grow. Then Empire State vintners would need to up production, creating still more jobs – a nice shot in the arm for a neglected homegrown industry.
Given a chance to improve their constituents’ lives, New York lawmakers usually take a powder – especially if it means upsetting a special interest, like liquor-store owners.
But this time, there’s money involved – which can be used to placate other special interests.
Let’s face it: Albany shouldn’t keep wine sales, um, bottled up.
It’s time to let grocers sell wine.