Wine and liquor store owners are happy that the bottles on these shelves -- won't be also sold on supermarket shelves -- at least not for another year.

Don Bombace owns a large wine and liquor store in Farmington and is the regional director for the State Liquor Store Association, representing hundreds of wine and liquor stores across New York.

Scott Osborne owns Fox Run Vineyards and says he speaks for other Finger Lakes wineries. He's also president of the New York Wine Industry Association.

Bombace said, “This will preserve jobs, create businesses to grow and also increase the sales of New York state wines as well as keep alcohol out of the hands of minors.”

Osborne said, “The fact that we're not able to sell to 19,000 grocery store outlets and we're restricted to 2,700 outlets that don't necessarily want to carry our wines.>
  
“The bread and butter of a wine and liquor store is the wine area,” Bombace said. “You take 30-percent of that business away from us -- we close.”

Osborne said, “Rochester does a good job. They really support us. But once we get out of Rochester, it's really hard to sell New York wines to these liquor stores.”

Bombace says only a handful of Finger Lakes wineries support wine in grocery stores.

Osborne says there is an intimidation factor and many wineries don't want to go public with how they really feel. “When you go into the liquor store and see me on the bottom shelf, there's a statement being made there.”

Bombace said, “New York State brands are focused and hand sold in liquor stores. This would not happen in grocery stores as they say they would.”

We asked this woman visiting the wineries from Syracuse if having table wine in grocery stores would be more convenient. Iris Grant said, “I think it would be. But I know the liquor store owners are upset about it because that's their business. But to me, as a consumer, it would be good for me.”

Wegmans today issued a statement that says, “We're disappointed.  The nearly two-thirds of New Yorkers who wanted wine to be sold in grocery stores will surely be disappointed if the Legislature chooses not to raise $150 million in tough economic times for schools and healthcare; protect family farms, open space and the environment, while also creating 2,000 badly needed new jobs.”

There are provisions to the wine bill that would let wine stores sell other things like grocery items. Liquor store owners say they wouldn't be able to recoup the loss of wine revenue if they sold cheese and crackers for example. But Fox Run's Osborne counters that some small wine store owners like that idea because it would allow them to compete with the big wine store owners by offering personal service like gift baskets.

Source: whec.com

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