Local wine and liquor stores fear a bill in the New York State legislature that would allow wine sales in grocery stores will put them out of business.
While wine in grocery stores in popular in polling, the potential devastating effects on local retailers and the supply chain are not presented in those polls.
Retailers argue that shifting wine sales to supermarkets will take away a significant portion of their revenue. There is also worry that the slippery slope will lead to further deregulation, allowing liquor sales in grocery stores next.
New York’s legislature has yet to vote on the bill. They hope to wrap it in with the state budget due April 1st. Small retail owners hope it fails, warning of major losses of businesses, jobs, and empty storefronts in already suffering communities should it pass.
When a similar measure was approved in Colorado in 2022, hundreds of independent liquor stores closed down.
Tom Gilberti, General Manager of The Wine Guy in Smithtown, does not support the law saying, “It would be very devastating for an industry that has run a certain way for over a hundred years. We're all singly owned independent retailers and liquor business. You can’t have more than one retail store on your license.”
“This could be the equivalent of a nuclear bomb going off in our industry in New York State,” Michael Correra, executive director of the Metropolitan Package Store Association said in an interview with Spectrum News. “It would be catastrophic.”
If supermarkets can swoop in under this legislation with dramatic rule changes, they will erase generations of building a community based business.
Gilberti says, “Many stores are anchored in a parking lot with a supermarket. We have been restricted for years from growing beyond one store and to suddenly open up the floodgates to these giant corporations seems patently unfair.”
The new rules aren’t just bad from a business perspective. It is not so good for the consumer either. Sure, it may offer convenience to but a bottle of wine in the grocery store, but you are also sacrificing choice and quality. You are getting the Top 40 radio station of wines.
“It's a homogenization of wine business. I think of supermarket wine as trying to get a cheap bottle of wine before you go to a party. There won’t be a choice of fine wines or interesting small vineyard, unique offerings,” says Gilberti. “Convenience isn’t everything. Having local retailers exist is important to the community fabric whether it be a flower store, a small hardware store, or a local wine and spirits shop.”
If everything comes from a big box store as smaller retailers close up shop, the fabric of towns and villages gets torn apart. Buildings become vacant and strolling down Main St. becomes less interesting. Towns dry up.