Questioning Peralta's campaign contributions

Dear QC,

At the Borough President Candidate forum (4/10/2013) in Maple Grove Cemetery Center sponsored by the Queens Civic Congress, I asked a question of Senator Peralta regarding news that broke recently on his involvement in the "At Rest" law for wine and liquor distribution in NY State, and his reception of campaign contributions over the last 3 years from Empire Merchants LLC, which has been noted to be one of the two biggest wholesalers in the state.



Now, I really disliked having to interrupt the senator when he's giving his response, but he was engaging in a deliberate distortion of the truth, and I felt overwhelmingly compelled - I apologize for that. But the NY State Board of Elections definitively shows that Senator Peralta received $2500 over the last 3 years from Empire Merchants, LLC.

I had this information on hand. To say that he received $2500 in contributions OVER the 11 years suggests that he was given some amount of it 11 years ago, which is not the case.

Empire Merchants is cited as owning facilities in NYC, which would give it a distinctly unfair competitive advantage against smaller stores that use cheaper facilities in NJ in order to bring city residents a wider variety of alcohol at prices NYers can afford. Now of course, almost any law will inevitably help some parties more than others. What I find particularly troubling here is that this legislation confers no productivity benefit: it simply requires that goods have to sit idle before sale. The industry will likely be more consolidated into fewer, larger hands, and small businesses that shed jobs will neutralize union gains. Organic Wine Journal has already spoken out about how this type of legislation will be harmful.

Senator Peralta has tried to push this legislation in the past, too.

That Senator Peralta does not see this as a conflict of interest to even vote on, let alone co-author the legislation, is troubling. Pointing the finger at other politicians doing the same thing is besides the point: neither Klein nor Cuomo are running for BP - only Peralta. Receiving less money does not exonerate him from the responsibility to abstain from taking part in this. Suggesting that 33 other states having this same onerous law means it would be a good idea for NY to do so too makes no sense as the economy struggles to get its footing. These should be troubling facts for anyone concerned with corruption of political office by special interests, and the future of Queens.


Sincerely,
Jon Torodash

Illegal Chinese moonshine being sold in Flushing

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.

Windfall expected from supermarket liquor sales

From Fox 5:

ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) - A Cornell researcher says the state could reap about $22 million a year if grocery stores were permitted to sell wine.

Grocery store wine sales would also benefit wineries in and outside of the state. That's according to Bradley Rickard, an assistant professor of economics who conducted simulation experiments to assess the implications of introducing wine into grocery stores.

Rickard said expanding wine sales to grocery stores would likely lead to a decrease in wine sales by 17 percent to 32 percent in existing liquor stores.

Legislation to legalize grocery store wine sales was defeated in 1984 and 2009 amid heavy opposition from liquor stores. But Rickard said a new bill being discussed would provide compensation to liquor store owners to make up for their expected loss in revenues.

Bloomie thinks drinking in parks should be legal

From New York Magazine:

Mayor Bloomberg has "never understood why we don't let you drink in the park," he recently told a group of community newspapers. "I mean, you go to watch the Philharmonic, you can't have a bottle of wine."

Why you can't buy wine at the supermarket

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.