I was hoping to find a subject to write about as a break from the rigors of Grape Madness and truth be told it’s a topic I had started formulating in my head a few weeks ago and forgot about it, until I opened today’s Times.
Once again the subject of selling wine in supermarkets is on the checkout stand in New York. And although the person flying the flag the highest, Tom Wark at Fermentation will most certainly write about this with more passion and eloquence than me (if he hasn’t already), I’m continually mystified by the fact that as a person in the business of selling wine, some consumers, depending on geography, simply cannot buy it.
Thanks, America.
Growing up in and around New York City, I was not aware that one could not buy wine in a grocery store, mostly because we did not drink wine at my house. So when I moved to California and saw wine on the shelves at the then Westward Ho market (now a Whole Foods), across from my apartment building, I suppose I always assumed you could buy it everywhere.
Not the case in my home state though, where a powerful political cabal of distributors, liquor stores and of course religious folk are fighting a proposal by Governor Patterson to raise revenue by allowing grocery stores to sell wine.
I mean, what man of the cloth doesn’t want to be seen going into Freddy’s Liquors on 46th & 9th?
The late (unbelievably) great, Bill Hicks used to say that the only reason the two most destructive drugs, tobacco and alcohol were legal was that they were the only two the government made money on. He’s right. But then how come wine is not as easily obtainable where hopefully responsible ADULTS can buy it alongside the liquid motherlode, beer?
The argument that allowing people to buy wine at a grocery store will put independent liquor stores out of business sounds so tired these days that they may as well make the old crotchety guy on his lawn yelling at the neighborhood kids their spokesperson. Need these retailers look any further than the states around them (Hi New Jersey) to see that it should always be about convenience for the customer?
A quaint concept to be sure, you know, allowing the people who keep your lights on the ability to buy everything they need in one place. And the follow up argument is, well, if they can sell wine, let us sell cheese, because really, what better place to buy aged Gouda than a liquor store.
In fairness, I do see some of their argument, but it’s the same argument made by independent bookstores against Amazon and the local hardware store against Home Depot and yet I drive through LA everyday and see signs of life from both. Just as there are signs that both are in trouble in 2009.
Last I checked the country was in a bit of a financial downturn. Isn’t it time to allow businesses to make money selling legal products to legally appropriate consumers where ever they may roam?
Doesn’t get anymore Land of the Free than that…
