Let people vote on wine in food stores

There are some who might wonder why the Tennessee Grocers and Convenience Store Association continues to push on with its effort to change state law to allow wine to be sold in retail food stores against what seem to be stacked odds. The answer is simple — it's something that a great number of our customers want, and our industry is based on taking care of our customers.

Is there money to be made by retail food stores selling wine? Of course there is. What's driving our efforts, however, is the increasing number of customers who are frustrated that they do not have the same opportunity for convenience and choice that shoppers in 35 other states have. They simply would like to pick up a bottle of wine while they shop for other items.

Those who are opposed to our efforts, which include liquor store owners, wine and spirits wholesalers, and people who are opposed to any sales of alcohol, will throw out a lot of smokescreens about why they are opposed to a change in the law. But let's not kid ourselves — the liquor industry is concerned first and foremost about maintaining its monopoly on the distribution and sale of wine.

The association fully realizes the challenge of getting state law changed. We are not, however, backing down from the challenge.

We still have a bill alive in the Legislature (SB 318/HB 560) that would allow local referendums on the issue in cities and counties that currently allow sales of wine in package liquor stores, including Knoxville. It's hard to understand why any legislator would be opposed to allowing local residents a chance to decide the issue themselves. Or maybe not.

Liquor store owners and wholesalers have maintained their monopoly on wine sales ...

I've never understood what it is about alcoholic beverages (of which I enjoy perhaps more than my share) that causes wildly different laws -- varying not only from state to state, but within states, and even within counties.

Liquor for off-premises consumption can be sold in some states only in state-run stores; in other states in privately-owned stores (which stores may, or may not, also sell beer and/or wine, depending on their location); or, in some states, grocery stores.

Differing laws apply to wine or beer for off-premises consumption -- where they may be sold, and when (Sunday sales banned in some jurisdictions; Sunday sales only after 11 AM or Noon or 1 PM in others).

Laws pertaining to on-premises alcohol are even more perplexing. It is commonplace for a totally "dry" county to be adjacent to one which allows bars as well as off-premises sales. There have been counties where you can buy a bottle of bourbon from a state-run store, but not a drop of beer may legally be sold. And so on -- every imaginable permutation of what kinds of adult beverages you may buy, from whom, and under what circumstances.

I live in Union County, NC, on the southeastern fringe of the Charlotte metro area. It is legal for towns within Union County to permit the establishment of state-run liquor stores, if approved by a majority of voters in a referendum -- if, that is, the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission thinks it can sell enough liquor at the location in question to make it economically justifiable. Sales of beer and/or wine by private stores (grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations), similarly, are subject to the passing of a referendum. And ditto for the establishment of bars, within the rather tight NC laws (establishments must derive 50% or more of their revenue from food, and, significantly, must buy their liquor from state-run warehouses, not at wholesale, but at retail plus a surcharge, which theoretically goes to programs to prevent alcoholism).

Again, all of this is subject to voter referendum, on separate questions; some towns have approved beer and wine sales by groceries, but turned down state liquor stores and/or liquor licenses for restaurants. Unincorporated areas of Union County are totally dry. The effect of that has been that there are no grocery stores in the county other than in towns which have approved sales of beer and wine in grocery stores.

If there is a dry county in this day and age, it's not for religious or political reasons, it's for financial reasons. Somebody who is making money from it is lining the pockets of the officials who make the decisions.

I would think in the cases of truly rural counties remote from cities of any size, a majority of the voters may, indeed, believe that alcoholic beverages are the tool of the Devil.

But in suburban counties or towns that vote "dry," you may well be right. In the town of Waxhaw, NC, (in my home county, Union, NC's most rapidly growing county, transitioning from the exurbs to the suburbs of Charlotte), liquor by the drink was twice voted down in the past decade, before finally passing a couple of years ago. My take is that the measure was voted down by anti-development people, who didn't want to see more commercial development of any kind in their town.

I don't know that graft was a factor, but economics may well have been -- some probably felt (erroneously, in my opinion) that the values of their homes may have been diminished by increasing development of any kind. These people were not anti-liquor religious fundamentalists; their home bars were stocked, and they didn't mind driving a few extra miles (to southern Charlotte, for example) for a cocktail and dinner.

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