From the NY Times:In the city’s Chinese enclaves, there is a booming black market for homemade rice wine, representing one of the more curious outbreaks of bootlegging in the city since Prohibition. The growth reflects a stark change in the longstanding pattern of immigration from China.
In recent years, as immigration from the coastal province of Fujian has surged, the Fujianese population has come to dominate the Chinatowns of Lower Manhattan and Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and has increased rapidly in other Chinese enclaves like the one in Flushing, Queens.
These newcomers have brought with them a robust tradition of making — and hawking — homemade rice wine. In these Fujianese neighborhoods, right under the noses of the authorities, restaurateurs brew rice wine in their kitchens and sell it proudly to customers. Vendors openly sell it on street corners, and quart-size containers of it are stacked in plain view in grocery store refrigerators, alongside other delicacies like jellyfish and duck eggs.
The sale of homemade rice wine — which is typically between 10 and 18 percent alcohol, about the same as wine from grapes — violates a host of local, state and federal laws that govern the commercial production and sale of alcohol, but the authorities have apparently not cracked down on it.
17 comments:
Cheers! So this is Flushing..... Home of all illegal Asiatic activities.
Yeah, like anything will be done about it. The city does not want to offend or bother the members of Flushing's vibrant and diverse community, so they can get away with it. They can even open a storefront right on Roosevelt and Main saying in english and chineese saying "illegal alcohol sold here" and every official will still look the other way.
Its like the hookah pipes, the taco trucks on the curb and the basement dwellers.
Exploiting the vibrant diverse population is the only way this city can still tick now that is it too expensive for regular folks.
They do not complain about Tammany Hall Machine.
And who knows? After a generation they may stick around and then you can be sure they sure the hell don't vote Republican.
Laws can be ignored if it means the machine can grow and the machine can conspire to break them ....which, if someone can build a case, might make the machine one step better than the mob.
And just as legal.
Where are those old time federal "revenuers" who used to go around busting up stills in the mountains?
This represents the latest of yet more undeclared income among Floo-shing's Orientals.
Where's Flushing's BID (business improvement district)....bidding Flushing goodbye?
H-m-m-m....
their street banners should read:
"Floo-shing, a destination for illegal enterprises'!
Confiscate their merchandise
and deport them back to Fujian...chop, chop!
Let's add to the illegal alcohol: pirate DVD's, illegal cigarettes ordered by phone delivered to your home,"Massage Parlors " and now illegal car services run by cell phone dispatch.
where tuby stavistky when you need her, oh wait a minute does'nt she live upstate to
can we please have a LGBT pride parade to coincide with the chinese near year down main street, i wuold love to do that, maybe i can hold hands with evan stavisky and march with pride, if you hold my egg roll, i'll hold yours
These newcomers have brought with them a robust tradition of making — and hawking — homemade rice wine.
Robust! Vibrant! Diverse!
We got all the NY Times' favorite cliches about Tweeders!
In these Fujianese neighborhoods, right under the noses of the authorities, restaurateurs brew rice wine in their kitchens and sell it proudly to customers.
And why not?
Because it's a Win-Win situation!
If the authorities crack down on the sale = Why are you picking on us poor Chinese? Racism!
If some poor Chinese schmuck dies from alcohol poisoning = Why didn't you Gweilos crack down on this illegal sale? Racism!
violates a host of local, state and federal laws that govern the commercial production and sale of alcohol, but the authorities have apparently not cracked down on it.
Translation = There's no evil white guy at the center of all this, so we're not going to bother!
A spokesman for the New York State Liquor Authority said the agency had recently received complaints about illegal Chinese rice wine and was looking into them, though he offered no further details.
Translation = The complaints were from Gweilos!
New York police officials said the department had never investigated the trade.
And they NEVER will!
That stuff does wonders for the live octopi I'm scarfin' down!
Jake leg anyone?
Jake leg anyone?
Too busy with the Jake off.
Even if the Chinese vendors tried to legalize their brews, the numerous federal, state and city regulations make it prohibitive and expensive to start a company.
Yeah, I know Brooklyn Beer is a success story, but it's a rare one.
Low alcoholic content rice grain hootch....this they crack down on
but let the whore houses, gambling dens and sex trade continue to go on in Flushing.
"Massagee, massagee....happy ending".
Puh-leeeeze!
Hey 109th PCT officers....get out there and walk your beats instead of beating off!
You know shows what adumb bastard i must be.. after living for more then 25 yeats in flushing, ( i just moved in 12 of 09.) I lived Dtown one block from the main st. of roosvt. well I would look into all the nooks and crannies i could and alwways saw those plastic containers which i throught was some kind of back home juice...but now i know why all the signs said HAPPY and all them non english good folk always had wide happy smiles..
I Also live in Flushing for 40 years and believe me not only illegal rice wine is sold prostitution is growing fast Flushing was the best place to live not anymore.
What a shame.. Flushing used to be a nice asian town just 5 years. look at it now! All because of traditional fujianese
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