Wine sales plan aims to ease liquor store worries

Plan permits gourmet food sale, other items; foe says it's "phony compromise"  

ALBANY -- Gov. David Paterson's proposal to allow the sale of wine in grocery stores and other retail operations that currently sell beer also contains changes designed to mollify the liquor-store lobby, which fears its members will be unable to compete with supermarket prices.

   
In a conference call with the media Thursday afternoon, state Commissioner of Agriculture and Markets Patrick Hooker and First Deputy Budget Director Ron Greenberg said the proposal would allow the following, all of which are currently prohibited:

Liquor stores to sell complementary items like bottled water, juices, soda and other mixers, gift bags and gourmet foods.

Liquor stores to install ATMs.

Multiple licenses (liquor store owners are presently limited to one.)

Co-operative purchasing, to enable small store to band together, increase buying power and get lower prices.

Sales from liquor stores to restaurants, bars and convenience stores. (At present, if a bar or restaurant runs out of a type of wine or liquor, it must wait for a distributor delivery.)

Paterson's measure also calls for the extension of the credit window allowed by wholesalers to retailers from 30 days to 60 days, a change that would give shops more flexibility with cash flow and the chance to buy in greater volume and thus at lower prices.

The bill is "very different from last year," Greenberg said. Strong opposition to Paterson's 2009 proposal to allow wine sales in the approximately 19,000 outlets in the state that sell beer caused the measure to be dropped during last year's budget negotiations.

While acknowledging that some of the state's 2,745 liquor stores may suffer if the proposal goes through -- opponents predict up to 1,000 would close, and a Cornell University study found that liquor stores' wine sales would fall up to 32 percent -- the administration is positioning the measure as a boon to both state coffers and the state wine industry. Paterson's office predicts that new store licensing fees would bring New York up to $92 million in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, and that New York wineries, with seven times as many potential outlets for their products, would see a 20 percent growth in production.

Opponents of the proposal say the new opportunities for liquor stores will not benefit most small stores.

"It is a completely phony compromise that provides cover for the big-box stores to crush our business," Michael McKeon, spokesman for The Last Store on Main Street, a coalition of small businesses opposing the change, told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

If the measure passes, New York would join 35 other states that allow wine sales in supermarkets.