From the Village Voice:While you can get a drink of just about any kind of fermented beverage in thousands of establishments of all sorts in this city, at just about any time of the day or night, there's one thing you still cannot do in New York: pick up a bottle of wine while you're buying groceries.
The thing is, New York's blue law isn't about lingering religious attitudes about alcohol, the way it is in places like Utah.
New York's grocery store wine ban is purely about political power.
In the last six months, the state's supermarkets mounted another sustained political campaign to repeal the wine ban—this time, enlisting the help of a supportive governor. But once again, a powerful group of New Yorkers succeeded in blocking the measure.
Who was it that blocked wine sales in grocery stores? Our own version of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union? Or some other association of uptight Carrie Nations?
No. It was the state's liquor stores and their lobbyists.
12 comments:
it also helps preserve the family owned liquor stores in the city also
Forget the A&P, I want to buy my booze at a NYC WalMart.
Not totally unfair. After all, they don't sell groceries. And it is a practical way of making it more difficult for teenagers to booze it up.
As it is so many drinks clearly targeted at the underage drinker are popping up in the local markets including hard cider and lemonaide and malt-liquor coolers. How many adults drink those on a regular basis?
We've gone on this fetish of raising the drinking age from 18 to 21 while creating alcohol-flavored soda pops. Maybe the old-school way of giving a kid a small amount of watered wine or taste of sherry at family celebrations is the right way to introduce them to the adult realities of liquor instead of binge-drinking crap with their friends.
Yes, God knows we don't have enough "mom and pop" liquor stores.
We have lots of mom and pop winarys here in NY, especially Long Island.
Who needs cheap California slave illegal labor water vino being sold in Supermarkets $3.99 a bottle out of a Snapple machine.
Thats what will happen.
Remember: In supermarkets the owners dont stock the shelves the distributers or parent corperations do !!
Ask anybody stocking shelves in a supermarket these days where vacume cleaner belts are. They will tell you "I dont work here"
Its hard enough now to get non commercial wine distributed
I grow wine grapes, make Wine and Grappa like others on the North Fork. Maintaining grape crushing equipment and botteling is a lot of work. SCREW CALIFORNIA SLAVE LABOR WINES !
They use 20% used grape mash then add 80% water, suger and color. Put it in 5000 gallon steel vats.
Its known as #2 wine, "Jug Wine" or "welfare booze".
Putting wine in supermarkets will be like having Walmart come in. M_F**ing Governor and the city want the tax $$ that’s what this is about
-Joe
I would love to be able to buy wine at the grocery store but that does mean that I would spend more money and drink more and that doesnt help anything.
Support your local wine shops and keep it out of the grocery stores.
i would never buy wine at a supermarket
but i believe they should have the right to sell it
The selection of wines in grocery stores in California is superior to most liquor stores here. Although I agree that it shouldn't be sold in grocery stores here, it would put the small owners out of business.
Only yuppie tower people and whining bike-lane users care about buying wine.
In Queens we likes dem beer.
For those who believe that wine should be sold in supermarkets - why shouldnt they be sold in bodegas as well? And id Shit & Shop is selling Boone's Farm, then shouldnt they be allowed to sell lower alcohol liquers, as well? The system in place is not broken. No need to fix so big chains can get a big cash infusion.
Anonymous said...
Only yuppie tower people and whining bike-lane users care about buying wine.
In Queens we likes dem beer....
What a fuckin loser.
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