Debate over wine sale in New York grocery stores continues
NEW YORK, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- A coalition of farmers, grocers and wineries Monday voiced their support in Albany, capital of New York state, for a state proposal allowing the sale of wine in grocery stores.
They reportedly said that the wine sales would generate 160 million U.S. dollars for New York in the first two years and save consumers 80 million dollars.
"I don't think the wine and liquor stores do as good a job as we do in terms of promoting New York products, and I can see the great benefit that we're going to have for the wineries and the grape-growers to really introduce their product," Price Chopper CEO Neil Golub said at a press conference.
Although many grocery stores agree with Golub and support the proposal, it is still drawing sharp criticism from some local wineshops, according to news report from a local website.
"What a lot of people don't realize is that New York State wineries understand that wine in grocery stores is not really going to help their sales -- it's a specialty product," Craig Allen of All-Star Wine and Spirits of Latham was cited as saying.
The current state law allows each wine store owner or wholesaler to run only one store selling spirits and wines, while a grocer can run several stores at one time, selling thousands of different products.
Grocery-store and winery officials pointed out that once the proposal was passed and went into effect, wine sales in the whole state could go up as much as 20 percent with 19,000 potential new outlets, compared with the current 2,500 ones.
It would also be worth about 100 million dollars to the cash-strapped state in new franchise fees.
But some local wine shop owners said it would vastly increase the teenagers' exposure to wine, and also cause more than 1,000 small wine businesses to close with 4,000 jobs lost.
Wine sales represent 65 to 80 percent of overall sales in private liquor stores, according to recent studies conducted by members of the coalition.