Liquor Authority Clarifies Position On Wine Gift Bags

A logical match -- or not? The New York State Liquor Authority wants to clarify what's going on with wine gift bags, enforcement, and Marketview Liquor.

SLA's director of communications Bill Crowley was nice enough to chat with me about the situation. "First of all, the last thing we want to do is hurt business," he explained. "Our focus and our priorities are the egregious violations -- stores that sell drugs, stores that sell alcohol to underage customers. We use our resources to go after what we think are significant violations." Wine gift bags, he said, are not nearly as worrisome. In fact, Crowley say that the SLA has only cited nine stores statewide in the past five years for selling wine gift bags.

But that doesn't mean SLA can forget about the law. "We can't choose to ignore it," Crowley said. The state law lists the various items that wine or liquor stores CAN sell; they include wine, liquor, wine glasses, corkscrews, wine stoppers, and more. But wine gift bags were never specifically listed in that section of code, so for now they can't be sold in wine stores.

Regarding Marketview Liquor, which was cited for selling the gift bags (they're not the only one; as of last week just about every liquor and wine store in western NY was selling them): Marketview will almost certainly be fined far less than the $10,000 maximum. "We've reviewed the store's records, and it's a model business," Crowley said. "They haven't had a violation since opening in 1972. So I can almost certainly say that they won't be fined $10,000." So I asked, What will the fine be? Crowley said he doesn't know yet and the SLA board will take more time to decide.

Marketview owner Mike Palmeri was upset that the SLA investigated his store back in June but didn't tell him about it or warn him not to purchase new merchandies. Palmeri bought a load of new wine bags and other accessories that he can't sell during the holidays, so he's out thousands of dollars more.

"The timing wasn't on purpose," Crowley said about the citation, which came earlier in December, long after Palmeri ordered more wine gift bags. "It did take longer than usual." Crowley said he understands Palmeri's frustration.

So what now? The SLA will not evaluate whether a law makes sense, but Crowley says the SLA is open to revision. That could happen soon; lawmakers like Senator Joe Robach have pledged to address the issue next session.