Wal-Marting of wine?(1)
Liquor store owners wary of stealthy efforts to change law
ALBANY ?For decades, New York liquor stores believed they had a powerful and well-connected ally helping them keep wine out of supermarkets: Eber Bros., upstate's once dominant liquor distributor.
But Eber is no longer on the scene.
Last year, the company became another victim of the rapidly consolidating liquor distribution business, squeezed out by Southern Wine & Spirits ?the big boy on the block, the nation's biggest liquor distributor.
Southern is a fast-growing and aggressive company that's active in much of the country. It has relationships with Wal-Mart and other big retailers allowed to sell wine in other states.
And it's a company that many liquor store owners, along with others in the wine industry, are convinced is conducting a quiet campaign to get wine into supermarkets, just as Gov. David Paterson proposed when he released his 2009-10 budget last month.
"They have the money and the lobbyists to get it to pass," said Anthony Tremblay, owner of Anthony's Loudonville Wine and Spirits.
Southern, which did not return phone calls for this story, has indeed hired several powerful Albany lobbyists and is a substantial contributor to New York political campaigns.
But there is little evidence, at least to date, that the Miami-based company is pushing the Paterson budget proposal to extend wine sales to supermarkets, convenience stores or drugstores ?the 18,171 outlets that now sell beer.
In fact, Southern has indicated to the New York State Liquor Store Association ?a fierce opponent of grocery wine sales ?that it stands on the group's side. Stefan Kalogrides, president of the Albany-based association, said he has even received a personal assurance from Harvey Chaplin, president of Southern, that it is so.
"I take him at his word," Kalogrides said. "Businessman to businessman."
Likewise, Jeanne McEvoy, executive director of the Colorado Licensed Beverage Association, says Southern has opposed attempts at supermarket wine and beer sales in that state.
If Southern is against the proposal, it isn't alone among big New York wholesalers: The Charmer Sunbelt Group, the nation's second-largest liquor distributor, in a statement to the Times Union, said it "is prepared to invest significant resources to defeat this initiative.
"The proposed changes will force hundreds of independent package stores out of business and lead to job losses that this state and our communities cannot afford," Charmer Sunbelt said.
Still, many in the industry are skeptical of such stands, saying an expansion of wine sale outlets seems to make overwhelming financial sense for wholesalers.
They're particularly skeptical of Southern.
Perhaps that's because the company to them symbolizes the dramatic changes in the liquor business, a shift that has closed many distributors and left Southern and Charmer Sunbelt, through subsidiary Empire Merchants, in control of much of the state's liquor market.
Or perhaps it's because Southern's rise has been concurrent with a trend toward liberalized liquor and wine laws, changes seen as detrimental to small liquor stores.
