Make wine available in grocery stores

 For the first time ever, wine in grocery stores has been included in the governor's budget. We want to be fair to everybody including liquor store owners. This proposal raises $159 million (Department of Budget estimate), which is badly needed to provide important services.

At this difficult economic time, wine in grocery stores will create over 2,000 net new jobs in retailing, farming and related businesses according to an economic study by American Economics Group, a national organization that is respected by the state Senate and Assembly.

Wegmans wants to provide meaningful work for its employees and help them learn and grow. This will provide exciting opportunities for employees to be wine department managers, wine experts and department employees. Other retailers will do the same.

Liquor stores say jobs will be lost. They did not conduct a study, they just asked each other their opinion.

The New York State Grape Growers reports that when wine in grocery stores was implemented in other states, wine sales increased (Idaho 150 percent, Iowa 93 percent, Maine 137 percent, West Virginia 98 percent and Washington State 53 percent). How can jobs be lost when wine sales increase?

Also, there is no evidence that a large number of liquor stores go out of business as a result of wine in grocery stores. There are many fewer liquor stores today than in years past, yet many more wineries have opened with fewer outlets for their products.

Polls show that approximately 70 percent of consumers want wine in grocery stores. They want the convenience, variety and lower prices that only competition can bring.

Farmers and wineries will benefit from increased sales of wines. We already sell New York wines elsewhere. We buy millions of dollars of produce each year from over 200 New York farms. We will do the same for wine and other grocers will too.

There will be no issue regarding the sale of wine to minors. We already sell beer and this causes no problem. According to the Journal of Studies on Alcohol, only 4 percent of drunk drivers drank wine. We instituted a program in 2004 that required proper identification for every purchase of beer. We have had over 17 million transactions involving beer in that time with only one violation.

Lastly, we want to be fair to liquor store owners. Liquor stores will still have a monopoly over the liquor business (30 percent to 40 percent of sales) and get their share of increased wine sales. Backed by large distributors, they refuse to talk and compromise. If they want the ability to sell more products, to band together to get volume discounts and to form chains in order to fairly compete, that is fine with us. They should compete like every other American business large and small.