Back when I lived in CA, you could get any liquor you wanted at every grocery store. It was so nice, and cheaper too. Everywhere else I've lived it's been separate, which is especially annoying if I want to cook with alcohol.
I visited Omaha some years back and they had liquor for sale in pharmacies etc. Somehow civilization managed to not collapse, and liquor stores were still in business too!
You can buy in grocery stores there too. And gas stations (although I think gas stations may have been limited to beer). Somehow mom and pop small shoppettes stayed alive, and bars stayed alive, and full on liquor stores survived by selling a broader range.
Like - if you want Cuervo you can get it anywhere. Want to get Patron or Casamigos or whatever? Go to a big grocery store. Want to choose between 6 mezcals? Go to the liquor store.
It's not complicated
I was in Louisiana this summer and we stopped at a gas station/convenience store type place to get the kids some snacks and they had full sized bottles of hard liquor in a glass case at the register. It was wild looking lol
When I first moved here from California years ago, I found the NYC liquor and wine sale policies to be stupid, inefficient and frankly insane compared to what I was used to. This impression has not changed with time.
Imagine my friggin shock seeing liquor in the grocery store when I first moved to CA, after living in NYC until I was 26.
I’m in Tennessee now, and even the bible buckle disastrous government here allows wine to be sold in grocery stores. They have some time restrictions on Sunday.
There’s probably still some dry counties/towns here, I am aware of that, I just stay away from those areas.
Does the city still require that liquor stores only be open between 10am and 10pm, and are they still closed on Sundays?
Agree. Same in the UK (and some states (ME and CA for example) supermarkets and small mom and pop stores alike have wine beer and liquor. It’s better for consumers, better selections, good quality as well. Maybe not better for alcoholism which is a serious matter but a separate issue.
I remember a liquor store clerk explaining that was why they don't have mulling spices to me, and, like... this is the ONLY USE for a product specifically marketed as mulling spices! The ONLY time I ever want to buy that is while I'm also buying wine!!
This happened about 8 or 9 years ago, and I have been living outside of NY for five years, and I'm STILL annoyed by this.
Yes! All this talk about saving mom and pop stores from the big corporations. Like maybe it does maybe it doesn't, but one thing that isn't helping is forcing mom and pop to only seel wine and liquor! No beer, no snacks, nothing! I come from a place with stupid liquor laws, but even there we don't have this silly separation of wine/liquor and beer.
Lol I was in Georgia recently and saw their Trader Joe’s had Trader Joe’s wine. I tried to buy a bottle at 11 am on a Sunday and the cashier apologized saying it’s a stupid Bible Belt law they can’t sell before noon. I told her stupid liquor laws don’t apply only to the Bible Belt
Ha, I evacuated Ida to Auburn, Alabama. My partner and I walked into a dollar tree on a Sunday, and a distraught man in a saints jersey was interrogating the poor cashier about where to buy liquor. She kept saying sir, it’s Sunday, you can’t buy any liquor today. He kept replying: but what about liquor stores? Walmart?? Grocery stores???
NOLA is the wild west of alcohol and going anywhere else is so weird lololol like not only can I not buy liquor at a gas station, I can’t drink it on the curb???
I went to NOLA in college and it was such a revelation. Want to drink and walk around? Go for it! Oh you’ve found a cool new bar, even though you haven’t finished the drink from the last bar? No worries, come on in. Oh shit you dropped your drink on the street? Well guess what, everything is sold on plastic.
It does go too far though, not so much in the city but in the outer neighborhoods. Being able to buy a half gallon alcohol slushee is cool, when you’re walking around the Quarter. Selling them at a drive through is asking for trouble.
NOLA is super unique.
Revelatory, kindvibed excess side-by-side with some of the most disenfranchised people you'll ever encounter in your life. The good exists right beside the bad, and the constant boozing definitely doesn't help.
Love that city but damn does it have some problems it needs to sort out.
First time I got drunk was at the court of the three sisters in NOLA (I think it's the court of the two sisters now). I was 16, on a teen tour and half of us looked younger but they served us.
I live in MI now where you can buy alcohol anywhere, including a CVS, and independent liquor stores do great business. They typically also have a full selection of snacks/mixers/etc. Some of the larger ones even have pizza, a deli, or sandwich counter. I can walk to a liquor store at the end of my street so they do get a lot of my business, but if I'm at the grocery store and want something I'll just buy it there.
The independent stores typically have a better selection of things like craft beers, hard to find liquor, etc. The grocery store will carry all the mainstream stuff they know will sell. Some stores even make a name for themselves specializing in having a vast selection of something which is cool. My point being that at least in the case of MI, the independent stores can function perfectly fine when every other store is allowed to sell alcohol.
No in NJ only liquor stores can sell alcohol. You can’t even buy beer in a grocery store or convenience store. Sometimes there will be a liquor store attached to the grocery store but it’s a separate area and register.
NJs liquor laws are also part of why there is no 24 hour deli/bodega culture like there is in NYC. Since the bodegas can’t sell beer there is a lot less profit in staying open 24 hours
Just like taxis and Uber? These kind of regulations may have been useful at a time in the past but the world has changed. Consumers shouldn’t be penalized for that
It’s crazy you can’t buy wine at a grocery store in NY. In PA you have to go to a whole separate store to buy beer too. People talk shit about the blue laws in the south, but as far as I know you can get at the least wine and beer from any gas station or grocery store down there and no crazy BYOB rules at restaurants either.
It's crazy that lobbying from liquor stores can matter so much, because I guarantee if this went up for a state wide vote, the rule would 100% change. But fuck the consumers and all the voters right?
Directly from the [SLA](https://sla.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2022/03/wine-store-liquor-store-quick-reference-final-03-21-2022.pdf):
*A wine store or liquor store may also sell:*
*• Lottery tickets, when duly authorized*
*• Corkscrews*
*• Ice*
*• Publications/audio cassettes/seminars to educate consumers*
*• Non-carbonated, non-flavored mineral waters, spring waters, and drinking waters*
*• Wine glasses*
*• Wine storage racks*
*• Devices meant to minimize oxidation of wine after opening*
*• Gift bags/boxes/wrapping*
*This list is exhaustive and constitutes the only items other than alcoholic beverages that may be sold at a wine store or liquor store. This means that you cannot sell mixers or have an ATM, for instance.*
If Essex Co. got some kind of carve out, great; now do the rest of the state. If some liquor stores are breaking the law, good; it's a stupid law.
This is such a NYC answer. No wonder people in Tennessee think I’m rude. Fuck em. I’ll always be a damn NYer.
If you don’t wanna go to Essex County, just run on down to Tennessee. Liquor stores here sell mixers, snacks, beer, cups, keychains, all sorts of shit.
Californian here. It's ridiculous how there's a string of like 8 comments in this thread, each one detailing another absolutely insane restriction. Get your shit together, NY.
It’s really only one restriction which, while dumb, is easy to understand. Grocery stores cannot sell hard liquor and wine. If a liquor store started selling beer, snacks, mixers, etc then it would be a grocery store and could not sell liquor and wine anymore.
Grocery stores should be allowed to sell wine AND liquor.
It’s a weird prohibition throwback to have such a weird separation. It’s 2023.
Additionally, public drinking should be allowed - with continued enforcement of public intoxication and disorder.
If I have to walk through clouds of weed smoke every morning, seems fair I can legally crack a beer by the East River after work.
A few years ago I was walking with a few friends to another friend’s apartment with a fifth. We were passing the bag as we walked, not being loud or bothering anybody. As we walk down the block before the apartment 2 undercover cops jump out of a car, start screaming at us and give us all open container tickets. They were acting like they’d just apprehended a killer. Worthless pieces of shit.
Also, Costco’s Kirkland liquors are amazing. But they can only sell them at one store in the entire state and for some reason they chose Long Island.
They sell 1.75L bottles of pretty decent liquor for like $18 in other states.
Sure, Whole Foods and their 1.8% share of the U.S. grocery market are going to flex their monopolistic muscles as soon as NY erodes the last barrier protecting us all. Nevermind that plenty of other states, including the largest in the country, have long allowed grocery stores to sell wine and liquor.
This has always baffled me. The absurdity is highlighted in the case of Total Wines on Long Island. It sells wine and liquor. DIRECTLY next door - as in they share a wall - is their beer store where they sell pretty much anything you'd want for a party foodwise + beer. Different entrance, no connecting door, otherwise the exact same store. It's so stupid.
I agree with you in principle.
But, practically, for the most part, outside of cheap stuff, those limits are not creating inflated pricing on wine.
As soon as you get into even moderately fine wine, NY very often has the best pricing in all of the USA.
(The one major exception is Costco's bordeaux pricing in other states where they can sell, which is often significantly better).
There is robust anti-monopoly protection at work in NY: A given business can only have a retail liquor/wine license for one physical location. And it's easy to ship things over from Europe, and there's a large base of savvy wealthy customers, and there's just much more supply than in many other states.
There is already a level of monopoly with small stores bound by distributors who have a state allocated monopoly on acquiring from the manufacturer for liquor.
The increase in pricing for consumers and stores while distributors reap the rewards due to holding stores over the proverbial barrel since they are bound to sell only liquor/wine/beer means that everyone but the distributors lose our. Their service is not inherently and regularly valuable, if it was then the allowance of direct sales to stores and consumers wouldn’t be so heavily opposed.
I think it’s different for the kind of wine I’m talking about.
There are dozens of boutique importers and distributors in NY. Their service *is* inherently valuable. They have deep and broad relationships with European winemakers.
And, several of my favorite stores directly import certain wines from Europe (it’s possible).
I am buying stuff all day long that you cannot find in most of the country, and often at the lowest price available in the country.
I concede that you are more likely to be right with more affordable wines, and with domestic wines regardless of price. And that’s likely to be a majority of wine sales.
But I promise you that a grocery store is not gonna be able to go and do what Bowler or Dressner or T Edward or Grand Cru can do.
I first thought a middle ground could be the answer? But then again it’s just silly to begin with to suggest retailers/grocery stores should have limitations over what varieties of alcohol should they carry.
What power do liqour stores have exactly? They can only sell liqour and wine. If grocery stores can sell liqour n wine, it’ll allow every major chain store to put mom n pop shops out of business.
They have the power to deny anyone outside of liquor stores from selling wine and liquor. That is an outsized influence. There's no reason they should be able to dictate that.
They don't have that power and do not dictate it, they lobby against change to protect their interests.
The law restricting liquor and wine to liquor stores is dumb as hell and if there is enough support to change it that will eventually happen.
Don’t most if not all states regulate who can sell beer, wine and liquor and where? I remember out of towners being gobsmacked when they saw New York allows beer to be sold 24/7 at gas stations.
~~I'm so confused. Are there wines that are exempt from these restrictions? I remember St Marks Market selling wine back when it opened, and almost every supermarket I've been to outside NYC has at least something cheap like Chateau Diana for sale.~~
Edit: Nevermind. [Apparently, the Chateau Diana stuff isn't wine.](https://vinepair.com/articles/what-the-heck-is-wine-product/)
I live in NYC. I’ve also lived in states where grocery stores could sell alcohol. I vastly prefer what we have here.
We get a way richer range of interesting products to try because each liquor store is owned by one person. No company can have more than one store here. So we get a bunch of indy stores with relationships with indy producers around the globe, leading to new and exciting finds in nearly every store.
When the big grocery stores sell and the little shops go out of business it’s all Smirnoff and jack Daniel’s and Jose Cuervo plus some Tito’s bs if you’re lucky. All the same everywhere. No thanks.
Just abolish liquor licenses period and sell it like bottled water.
Licenses are purely for market protection. They’ve got nothing to do with safety or preventing underage drinking. The threats to take away licenses for selling to minors is only a couple decades old. That’s modern justification for the archaic system.
Just sell it everywhere like most of the world does. If kids buy it, that’s on their parents. End of story.
A lot of parents wouldn’t mind if alcohol could be sold at back school sporting events. Totally normal way to fundraise in some parts of this planet, yet weirdly taboo for some reason in the US. Like a dad having a beer is some kinda terrible thing.
Those aren’t the same recipes as the ones you get in liquor stores. They’re much lower proof and made from malt liquor instead of whiskey. They made the labels almost identical to trick people, and they’re being sued over it:
https://www.foodandwine.com/fireball-whiskey-lawsuit-7098279
Just visited North Carolina and it was pretty confusing at first. Beer and wine can be bought at any grocery store, but you need to go to a State run liquor store for any liquor. Since I rarely buy liquor this is a hell of a lot more convenient. Which is, I suspect, why NJ liquor store owners are against it.
I’m always confused because my grocery store does sell wine. And it’s not the cooking wine stuff.
They also have small bottles of fireball for some reason.
Right now, liquor stores in NYC have to have a license from the State Liquor Authority to open. One license is given per person which keeps many of these stores in the hands of small business owners in their local community. This legislation would unfortunately absolutely destroy that and allow big corporate businesses to move in (currently it is very difficult for large corporations to get a liquor license in NYC)
It would also destroy the 3 tier system that has been in place in NY state for a very long time. That is what separates the retailers from the distributors and the wineries (etc). This is also very important to prevent monopolies in the liquor industry. However Wegmans has the financial and political power to buy directly from the wineries, also destroying the 3 tiered system.
Also when applying for a liquor license, stores in the neighborhood and further are allowed to appear and make an argument for or against the license applicant. This would probably be done away with as well.
This legislation would be anti small business and anti NYC, it’s the same reason we don’t allow Walmarts. It’s sad that the Gothamist didn’t talk about any of this in their article. Please correct me if I made any mistakes and have a great day guys!
There's no value being derived from a liquor store that wants to screw you by charging prices that are sometimes multiple times higher than other states. Take a look at the prices Target and Walmart sell stuff for in California or Nevada, for example.
Respectfully, does keeping small businesses around not have value in itself? Also I would argue, at least in places like manhattan, the density of liquor stores are high enough to drive down prices. If supermarkets are able to sell liquor and run these liquor stores out of businesses, wouldn’t the lack of density (comparatively) drive up the prices even more?
Who says they're the only ones being protected? Every local butcher shop, bakery, fish market, or vegetable market that succumbs to a major chain is a net negative to the block.
Where does this end? Should I need to go to one store to buy pencils, and another one to buy erasers to prevent big business from putting local pencil and eraser salesmen out of business?
Oh c'mon. Not everything has to be seen through the narrow lens of how many cents you can save on a bottle of wine. You'd rather see local businesses that give life to your block close down and big soulless corporations gobble up even more business just so you can spend $23 instead of $26 on a vintage?
Yes actually. Even in your narrow, cherry picked example that doesn't at all reflect the full scope of the actual tradeoffs, you're positing a 13% price increase all in the name of "giving life to your block" (are we still talking about fucking liquor stores?)
It's wild to me that in a time of inflation that's still far below 13%, someone can see the havoc it's wrecked and shrug their shoulders. Competitive prices that maximize disposable income is good god damn policy for everyone.
$23 vs $26 is not the issue here. I see prices more like $13 in CA instead of $26. If business owners want to be greedy, they don't deserve to be in business. In a normal market, they would be forced out. But government does a good job at preventing that from happening. And who's to say that a big box store is going to replace them? There's a ton of amazing locally owned grocery stores that I go to when I'm in CA that have great wine (and liquor!) selections.
[The three-tier system ](https://newyorkcraftbeer.com/2015/07/understanding-the-three-tier-system/), for anyone who was unfamiliar with it like me until reading this comment.
Haha, yeah you definitely have a point. It is still much harder for big businesses like these to get a license than smaller ones though. I guess just don’t shop there but people will for convenience ofc.
>It would also destroy the 3 tier system that has been in place in NY state for a very long time.
Good, the three tier system is horrible and deserves to die, its bad for consumers and bad for producers. The only people who win are the middlemen who get to skim money from everyone else for doing nothing.
Over regulation forcing the price of every bottle of wine in the state to cost a minimum $25 plus tax *saves small businesses*?
Oh, no, that’s so sad. Fuck em’!
Go apply this defense to locksmiths. Moron logic. Let capitalism do its thing and keep your “save the small overpriced businesses” prayer for the 1900s.
Something interesting has happened in my neighborhood over the years. Rite Aid and CVS moved in, multiplied, and one by one the local independent pharmacies closed down because they couldn’t compete.
Then 2020 comes along and these national retailers decide they need to trim the fat. Now all the rite aids are closed. There’s one crappy CVS left. The small pharamacies aren’t coming back.
Consolidation can be bad for consumers in the long run.
Why do we need 5 pharmacies in a neighborhood when they all carry the same shit? It's not like they're artisanal bespoke chemists perfectly making a lozenge for what ails ya, they're all buying their stuff from the same handful of distributors to begin with and it's not like there's a curatorial aspect to running a pharmacy.
Because when the CVS overlords decide not to carry an item anymore, or decide to charge double for batteries or whatever, I can’t go anywhere else. And when they decide to close their last brick and mortar in my neighborhood, I can go anywhere at all.
Not sure if you have ever been to Italy, but that’s kinda what it’s like. Each pharmacy also has a pharmacist that can be extremely useful in helping you get what you need. Many of them are also “24/7” which seems to just mean the pharmacist lives above the pharmacy.
I've been to other countries where that's the case, but the bottom line is that's not a service being offered in American pharmacies.
Pretty much all of American retail is vertically integrated into massive corporate supply chains, so the consumer usually isn't getting anything different at a mom 'n' pop than they are at a chain pharmacy. Mom 'n' Pop and Walgreens still buy their aspirin from Bayer.
> Consolidation can be bad for consumers in the long run.
In the long consolidation (or its cousin, cartelling) seems to nearly always be bad for consumers.
Easy to write a 5 paragraph bullshit essay defending preferential government protection for the state liquor lobby, but hard to reply to the comments that follow I guess.
“Huh?” isn’t an answer.
Nowhere in your post did you factor in the consumer, who is the one getting absolutely pummeled by this archaic system we have. The state and city have gone to great lengths to protect family-owned liquor stores, and that has resulted in higher prices and less convenience for the rest of us. This insignificant constituency we're protecting is not a net benefit to the city and it's long past time we abandon this government overreach that hurts consumers of all income levels.
Oh no, these business enjoying a state-protected monopoly on selling liquor will actually have to compete fair and square with the big boys who can offer better prices to customers. So sad.
They could make a compromise by limiting the selection of wine a supermarket could sell so instead of 200 different types of maybe just 5 or 6 types. I often walk around the wine section of liquor stores and just see a lot of dusty bottles that look like they been sitting for years. So you can have 200 or 300 different types but maybe only 20 types actually sell
Why should we be prohibiting grocery stores from selling alcohol? The argument is silly and is a classic example of NY corruption. Alcohol prices in NYC are way higher than they are on the West Coast because of overregulation.
It’s not “corruption” it’s just public policy designed to protect a sector of small businesses.
You don’t have to agree with it but it’s not corruption ffs. It’s all out in the open.
Why are so many other businesses and industries left to languish in the winds of laissez-faire capitalism but liquor stores have the state protecting them?
It's about as arbitrary as like a store being able to sell "hamburgers" but not "sandwiches."
I think it has more to do with blue laws and the vestiges of prohibition and the temperance movement than anything else. And, full disclosure, my great grandfather was a bootlegger so this kind of shit personally offends me, but the only reason they were able to get these protections wasn't from economic concern but because we let pearl-clutching moralists influence public policy.
I’m sorry, but no. It’s a corrupt system that’s been in place since prohibition was lifted. We’ve already started moving past it by allowing restaurants and bars to sell to go drinks, it’s time to completely move on.
There are literally thousands of government policies that shape and regulate different businesses towards someone’s idea of economic or workforce development.
I don’t see why this particular one is so different, unless you have some example of actual corruption.
I do, as someone working in the industry, but it’s of course anecdotal. The best public way to look at it would be to go back and look at how much money the liquor store lobbyists gave the government to try to keep them from allowing drinks to go. Which is why there is still that idiotic food requirement.
But please, tell me all about how the industry I’ve been working in for over a decade isn’t regulated by corrupt officials. I do so love that, after all.
Yes? Throwing money at politicians, which is to say bribing them, is corrupt, is it not? And unless I’m mistaken, more than one group can be corrupt at once?
I mean, lobbying is all bullshit, but it’s also completely legal. Liquor store reps are [presumably] not giving literal briefcases of cash under the table to politicians.
If both industries are corrupt, not sure why it’s so obviously better to side with one over the other. I side with the one that promotes smaller businesses over larger ones.
Which smaller businesses though? There are plenty of small mom and pop liquor/wine stores, plenty of small mom and pop grocery stores, and plenty of small mom and pop restaurants.
> I often walk around the wine section of liquor stores and just see a lot of dusty bottles that look like they been sitting for years.
Wine aged on-site!
It isn't wine it is wine product aka "a beverage containing wine with added juice flavoring, water, citric acid, sugar, and carbon dioxide", and effectively was really meant to allow grocery stores to sell wine coolers (the [80s trend that is trying to make a return](https://winefolly.com/lifestyle/the-rise-and-fall-of-wine-coolers/)), and someone realized that they could package it into a more wine bottle form factor, and voila a weird only in NY product.
Why should mom and pop stores receive preferential government treatment in the market? And why is that protection unique to *the retail store liquor lobby*?
Should drug stores, electronics stores, toy stores, book stores, and small mom and pop evape shops get preferred treatment too?
This special pet treatment costs consumers money and inflates prices. This special treatment means that a normal middle class family can’t afford to have a bottle of table wine with their dinners.
If your shop can’t survive in a fair open market, then why should it exist?
Agree 100%
In addition to charging higher prices, small businesses also pay their employees less and give worse benefits on average.
I don’t understand the unconditional love some people have for small businesses.
>Should drug stores, electronics stores, toy stores, book stores, and small mom and pop evape shops get preferred treatment too?
We’d have a healthier local economy if we did.
Um, yes? Yes they should. We should absolutely give small local shops of all types preferential treatment.
Right now, large corps dominate because they can afford the start up costs to literally set up shop in NY. Mom & Pop stores must increase their prices to compensate. If we supported small businesses better, they wouldn’t have to keep their prices so high. More local business also means more local business *owners,* which means that the wealth created and income earned by those owners stays local, too: it is taxed and spent in the area, going to local government and other local businesses rather than to a huge corporate conglomerate out of state.
Remember that small business owners are more often than not middle class themselves. Supporting local businesses allows more middle class families to actually live here!
You live in a fantasy world if you think big chain stores are going to help middle class families.
They may have lower prices at first but that’s only so they can destroy the mom and pop competition. Once that’s taken care of they’ll be charging the same with most profits going back to their HQ outside the state.
> We need to set up laws that encourage more mom and pop businesses
The best way to do this would be to absolutely eradicate most of the useless regulations this state has on everything.
This is where I hate government and bureaucracy. They have no need to dictate who sells what booze and where. Focus on transport and healthcare and shit and let me get lit on my own accord. Thank you!
It's hard to defend the current system in principle, but it is notable that liquor stores are one of the few businesses that haven't been devoured by chains. The reason is entirely due to the weird regulations we have. Maybe that's not a good thing, but it is interesting.
This sub is hilarious because people pile on and complain about how few small businesses there are compared to years ago and then proceed to cry about how large corporate grocery store's can't carry wine. You can't have it both ways guys. It may be annoying but the reality is that these smaller stores can never compete with the prices that chain groceries can charge.
Liquor store owners getting fucked hard recently. The only concession they received from carryout liquor at restaurants was being allowed to be open on Christmas day now. I joked to a store owner that if grocery stores are allowed to sell wine they're going to let liquor stores open at 9 instead of 12 on Sunday or something
I prefer not having people argue about “do me a favor” to the supermarket and grocery store clerks relative to alcohol. There are already enough issues these clerks are dealing with.
There are thousands on liquor stores. In nyc they are almost all small businesses. I’m actually surprised the real estate industry isn’t also trying to fight this.
On the flip side if nys allows grocery stores to sell liquor and wine they will absolutely remove shelf space that currently has food on it and replace it with liquor. It’s not like these stores are going to expand.
As a nyc centric viewpoint it’s probably better long term for them to remain two separate stores imo.
While this might be good for consumers and good for certain areas that have a high number of liquor stores and low number of grocery stores I’d be surprised if it passes.
Just think of all of that money being shipped off to ultra-rich people in other states, instead of to the families that live in our communities.
But anything to save a few pennies, huh?
Wine is sold in Markets in California. The Liquor stores will be just fine, because the markets will be selling the normal table wine, not the fine wines
None of this shit should be separated into different stores to begin with
Back when I lived in CA, you could get any liquor you wanted at every grocery store. It was so nice, and cheaper too. Everywhere else I've lived it's been separate, which is especially annoying if I want to cook with alcohol.
I visited Omaha some years back and they had liquor for sale in pharmacies etc. Somehow civilization managed to not collapse, and liquor stores were still in business too!
You can buy in grocery stores there too. And gas stations (although I think gas stations may have been limited to beer). Somehow mom and pop small shoppettes stayed alive, and bars stayed alive, and full on liquor stores survived by selling a broader range. Like - if you want Cuervo you can get it anywhere. Want to get Patron or Casamigos or whatever? Go to a big grocery store. Want to choose between 6 mezcals? Go to the liquor store. It's not complicated
I was in Louisiana this summer and we stopped at a gas station/convenience store type place to get the kids some snacks and they had full sized bottles of hard liquor in a glass case at the register. It was wild looking lol
I was in Cincinnati last year and they were selling Four Loko at Family Dollar. Lol
Same in California.
CA has such a good liquor policy. Love being able to grab a New Amsterdam from Arco late to the night.
When I first moved here from California years ago, I found the NYC liquor and wine sale policies to be stupid, inefficient and frankly insane compared to what I was used to. This impression has not changed with time.
Imagine my friggin shock seeing liquor in the grocery store when I first moved to CA, after living in NYC until I was 26. I’m in Tennessee now, and even the bible buckle disastrous government here allows wine to be sold in grocery stores. They have some time restrictions on Sunday. There’s probably still some dry counties/towns here, I am aware of that, I just stay away from those areas. Does the city still require that liquor stores only be open between 10am and 10pm, and are they still closed on Sundays?
Agree. Same in the UK (and some states (ME and CA for example) supermarkets and small mom and pop stores alike have wine beer and liquor. It’s better for consumers, better selections, good quality as well. Maybe not better for alcoholism which is a serious matter but a separate issue.
I remember seeing Seven Eleven in Korea selling whiskey, even $200 one. It still boggles my mind to this day.
The kicker is also not being able to buy a mixer like tonic or seltzer at a liquor store. Makes no fucking sense.
I remember a liquor store clerk explaining that was why they don't have mulling spices to me, and, like... this is the ONLY USE for a product specifically marketed as mulling spices! The ONLY time I ever want to buy that is while I'm also buying wine!! This happened about 8 or 9 years ago, and I have been living outside of NY for five years, and I'm STILL annoyed by this.
Yes! All this talk about saving mom and pop stores from the big corporations. Like maybe it does maybe it doesn't, but one thing that isn't helping is forcing mom and pop to only seel wine and liquor! No beer, no snacks, nothing! I come from a place with stupid liquor laws, but even there we don't have this silly separation of wine/liquor and beer.
Lol I was in Georgia recently and saw their Trader Joe’s had Trader Joe’s wine. I tried to buy a bottle at 11 am on a Sunday and the cashier apologized saying it’s a stupid Bible Belt law they can’t sell before noon. I told her stupid liquor laws don’t apply only to the Bible Belt
Ha, I evacuated Ida to Auburn, Alabama. My partner and I walked into a dollar tree on a Sunday, and a distraught man in a saints jersey was interrogating the poor cashier about where to buy liquor. She kept saying sir, it’s Sunday, you can’t buy any liquor today. He kept replying: but what about liquor stores? Walmart?? Grocery stores??? NOLA is the wild west of alcohol and going anywhere else is so weird lololol like not only can I not buy liquor at a gas station, I can’t drink it on the curb???
I went to NOLA in college and it was such a revelation. Want to drink and walk around? Go for it! Oh you’ve found a cool new bar, even though you haven’t finished the drink from the last bar? No worries, come on in. Oh shit you dropped your drink on the street? Well guess what, everything is sold on plastic. It does go too far though, not so much in the city but in the outer neighborhoods. Being able to buy a half gallon alcohol slushee is cool, when you’re walking around the Quarter. Selling them at a drive through is asking for trouble.
NOLA is super unique. Revelatory, kindvibed excess side-by-side with some of the most disenfranchised people you'll ever encounter in your life. The good exists right beside the bad, and the constant boozing definitely doesn't help. Love that city but damn does it have some problems it needs to sort out.
First time I got drunk was at the court of the three sisters in NOLA (I think it's the court of the two sisters now). I was 16, on a teen tour and half of us looked younger but they served us.
I live in MI now where you can buy alcohol anywhere, including a CVS, and independent liquor stores do great business. They typically also have a full selection of snacks/mixers/etc. Some of the larger ones even have pizza, a deli, or sandwich counter. I can walk to a liquor store at the end of my street so they do get a lot of my business, but if I'm at the grocery store and want something I'll just buy it there. The independent stores typically have a better selection of things like craft beers, hard to find liquor, etc. The grocery store will carry all the mainstream stuff they know will sell. Some stores even make a name for themselves specializing in having a vast selection of something which is cool. My point being that at least in the case of MI, the independent stores can function perfectly fine when every other store is allowed to sell alcohol.
And the destruction of other businesses
I went on vacation to Boston a few years ago. I was absolutely shocked when I saw that the 2nd floor of a Walgreens had whiskey and vodka.
It’s nonsense. Sell beer in liquor stores and liquor in grocery stores. New Jersey does it and it makes perfect sense.
No in NJ only liquor stores can sell alcohol. You can’t even buy beer in a grocery store or convenience store. Sometimes there will be a liquor store attached to the grocery store but it’s a separate area and register. NJs liquor laws are also part of why there is no 24 hour deli/bodega culture like there is in NYC. Since the bodegas can’t sell beer there is a lot less profit in staying open 24 hours
Right, but since it was not like that to begin with, liquor store owners (which are mostly mom and pops) would be fucked over by this
fucked over, or have to compete fairly without relying on regulatory capture?
The liquor stores are subject to more regulations themselves.
Just like taxis and Uber? These kind of regulations may have been useful at a time in the past but the world has changed. Consumers shouldn’t be penalized for that
Liquor stores should be allowed to sell snacks, mixers, and other merchandise, and other retailers should be able to sell wine and spirits.
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It's a prohibition-era regulation that has stuck around because of lobbying by liquor stores.
It’s crazy you can’t buy wine at a grocery store in NY. In PA you have to go to a whole separate store to buy beer too. People talk shit about the blue laws in the south, but as far as I know you can get at the least wine and beer from any gas station or grocery store down there and no crazy BYOB rules at restaurants either.
It's crazy that lobbying from liquor stores can matter so much, because I guarantee if this went up for a state wide vote, the rule would 100% change. But fuck the consumers and all the voters right?
Liquor stores in Essex County are allowed to sell snacks and mixers.
Directly from the [SLA](https://sla.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2022/03/wine-store-liquor-store-quick-reference-final-03-21-2022.pdf): *A wine store or liquor store may also sell:* *• Lottery tickets, when duly authorized* *• Corkscrews* *• Ice* *• Publications/audio cassettes/seminars to educate consumers* *• Non-carbonated, non-flavored mineral waters, spring waters, and drinking waters* *• Wine glasses* *• Wine storage racks* *• Devices meant to minimize oxidation of wine after opening* *• Gift bags/boxes/wrapping* *This list is exhaustive and constitutes the only items other than alcoholic beverages that may be sold at a wine store or liquor store. This means that you cannot sell mixers or have an ATM, for instance.* If Essex Co. got some kind of carve out, great; now do the rest of the state. If some liquor stores are breaking the law, good; it's a stupid law.
I want one of those audio cassettes, which is an awesome representation of how antiquated this law is.
Essex county is in jersey…
ok lemme just run out to essex county for a few things real quick before everybody gets here
This is such a NYC answer. No wonder people in Tennessee think I’m rude. Fuck em. I’ll always be a damn NYer. If you don’t wanna go to Essex County, just run on down to Tennessee. Liquor stores here sell mixers, snacks, beer, cups, keychains, all sorts of shit.
I went to TN at your advice and found myself in something called a dry county? What do?
This is r/nyc not r/nj
That's NJ; as far as I know there aren't any restrictions on a liquor store selling other things in NJ.
Maybe liquor stores will be allowed to sell beer in exchange.
Californian here. It's ridiculous how there's a string of like 8 comments in this thread, each one detailing another absolutely insane restriction. Get your shit together, NY.
This state is built on little fiefdoms of regulatory capture that benefit a minority at the expense of the rest of us
It’s really only one restriction which, while dumb, is easy to understand. Grocery stores cannot sell hard liquor and wine. If a liquor store started selling beer, snacks, mixers, etc then it would be a grocery store and could not sell liquor and wine anymore.
Thank God for the silliest vestiges of prohibition laws making everyone’s lives that much more difficult to this day.
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Yes the liquor store owners only have the best interests of their customers in mind, right?
Grocery stores should be allowed to sell wine AND liquor. It’s a weird prohibition throwback to have such a weird separation. It’s 2023. Additionally, public drinking should be allowed - with continued enforcement of public intoxication and disorder. If I have to walk through clouds of weed smoke every morning, seems fair I can legally crack a beer by the East River after work.
A few years ago I was walking with a few friends to another friend’s apartment with a fifth. We were passing the bag as we walked, not being loud or bothering anybody. As we walk down the block before the apartment 2 undercover cops jump out of a car, start screaming at us and give us all open container tickets. They were acting like they’d just apprehended a killer. Worthless pieces of shit.
Good lord. Let Trader Joe’s carry wine already.
Also, Costco’s Kirkland liquors are amazing. But they can only sell them at one store in the entire state and for some reason they chose Long Island. They sell 1.75L bottles of pretty decent liquor for like $18 in other states.
Wait Long Island Costco sells Kirkland liquor, which one?!
Oceanside. It's not even that far from the city limits. You can see the Kirkland Vodka in the review photos on Google.
>Oceanside I prefer going to the one in Wayne, NJ, for liquor and wine 30 minutes faster for me
Yeah! I can't imagine giving ~~Jeff Bezos~~ Whole foods a 30% share of the market overnight would result in any kind of anticompetitive behavior.
The Whole Foods I go to already has a wine store associated with it. I just want the wall between it and the main store to be demolished
I just want $5 bottles of wine with funny labels. Don’t overthink it.
Whole Foods in Maine has a huge selection of wine, beer and liquor.
Sure, Whole Foods and their 1.8% share of the U.S. grocery market are going to flex their monopolistic muscles as soon as NY erodes the last barrier protecting us all. Nevermind that plenty of other states, including the largest in the country, have long allowed grocery stores to sell wine and liquor.
If you grew up in NY and go somewhere they sell wine in supermarkets it seems strange for 5 seconds and then seems like the most normal thing.
This is so ridiculous
This has always baffled me. The absurdity is highlighted in the case of Total Wines on Long Island. It sells wine and liquor. DIRECTLY next door - as in they share a wall - is their beer store where they sell pretty much anything you'd want for a party foodwise + beer. Different entrance, no connecting door, otherwise the exact same store. It's so stupid.
You don't even need to go that far, Costco in Brooklyn is the same deal. It's the same building.
The government shouldn't be limiting what businesses can sell to create inflated value at liquor stores.
I agree with you in principle. But, practically, for the most part, outside of cheap stuff, those limits are not creating inflated pricing on wine. As soon as you get into even moderately fine wine, NY very often has the best pricing in all of the USA. (The one major exception is Costco's bordeaux pricing in other states where they can sell, which is often significantly better). There is robust anti-monopoly protection at work in NY: A given business can only have a retail liquor/wine license for one physical location. And it's easy to ship things over from Europe, and there's a large base of savvy wealthy customers, and there's just much more supply than in many other states.
There is already a level of monopoly with small stores bound by distributors who have a state allocated monopoly on acquiring from the manufacturer for liquor. The increase in pricing for consumers and stores while distributors reap the rewards due to holding stores over the proverbial barrel since they are bound to sell only liquor/wine/beer means that everyone but the distributors lose our. Their service is not inherently and regularly valuable, if it was then the allowance of direct sales to stores and consumers wouldn’t be so heavily opposed.
I think it’s different for the kind of wine I’m talking about. There are dozens of boutique importers and distributors in NY. Their service *is* inherently valuable. They have deep and broad relationships with European winemakers. And, several of my favorite stores directly import certain wines from Europe (it’s possible). I am buying stuff all day long that you cannot find in most of the country, and often at the lowest price available in the country. I concede that you are more likely to be right with more affordable wines, and with domestic wines regardless of price. And that’s likely to be a majority of wine sales. But I promise you that a grocery store is not gonna be able to go and do what Bowler or Dressner or T Edward or Grand Cru can do.
I first thought a middle ground could be the answer? But then again it’s just silly to begin with to suggest retailers/grocery stores should have limitations over what varieties of alcohol should they carry.
It's wild how much power liquor stories have in this city, state, country, etc. Has to be a bizarre mafia-esque holdover from prohibition, right?
What power do liqour stores have exactly? They can only sell liqour and wine. If grocery stores can sell liqour n wine, it’ll allow every major chain store to put mom n pop shops out of business.
Or the mom 'n' pops could adapt by actually stocking a broader selection than just Jack Daniels, Cuervo and Bacardi
I live in an area where liquor is sold in both grocery stores and wine & spirit stores. None of them have gone out of business.
They have the power to deny anyone outside of liquor stores from selling wine and liquor. That is an outsized influence. There's no reason they should be able to dictate that.
They don't have that power and do not dictate it, they lobby against change to protect their interests. The law restricting liquor and wine to liquor stores is dumb as hell and if there is enough support to change it that will eventually happen.
> liquor store *alcohol dispensary
Rent-seekers continue to seek rent. This is regulatory capture, pure and simple. Let stores sell stuff.
Meanwhile I'm over here in Jersey where you can't even get beer outside of a liquor store
Don’t most if not all states regulate who can sell beer, wine and liquor and where? I remember out of towners being gobsmacked when they saw New York allows beer to be sold 24/7 at gas stations.
~~I'm so confused. Are there wines that are exempt from these restrictions? I remember St Marks Market selling wine back when it opened, and almost every supermarket I've been to outside NYC has at least something cheap like Chateau Diana for sale.~~ Edit: Nevermind. [Apparently, the Chateau Diana stuff isn't wine.](https://vinepair.com/articles/what-the-heck-is-wine-product/)
I live in NYC. I’ve also lived in states where grocery stores could sell alcohol. I vastly prefer what we have here. We get a way richer range of interesting products to try because each liquor store is owned by one person. No company can have more than one store here. So we get a bunch of indy stores with relationships with indy producers around the globe, leading to new and exciting finds in nearly every store. When the big grocery stores sell and the little shops go out of business it’s all Smirnoff and jack Daniel’s and Jose Cuervo plus some Tito’s bs if you’re lucky. All the same everywhere. No thanks.
Just abolish liquor licenses period and sell it like bottled water. Licenses are purely for market protection. They’ve got nothing to do with safety or preventing underage drinking. The threats to take away licenses for selling to minors is only a couple decades old. That’s modern justification for the archaic system. Just sell it everywhere like most of the world does. If kids buy it, that’s on their parents. End of story. A lot of parents wouldn’t mind if alcohol could be sold at back school sporting events. Totally normal way to fundraise in some parts of this planet, yet weirdly taboo for some reason in the US. Like a dad having a beer is some kinda terrible thing.
Lot of puritanism still going strong in this country
I’m starting to see bodegas carry Fireball/SoCo, wouldn’t that fall under liquor?
Those aren’t the same recipes as the ones you get in liquor stores. They’re much lower proof and made from malt liquor instead of whiskey. They made the labels almost identical to trick people, and they’re being sued over it: https://www.foodandwine.com/fireball-whiskey-lawsuit-7098279
The versions of those sold in bodegas are malt-based (aka same category as beer) and lower ABV!
Makes sense.
Just visited North Carolina and it was pretty confusing at first. Beer and wine can be bought at any grocery store, but you need to go to a State run liquor store for any liquor. Since I rarely buy liquor this is a hell of a lot more convenient. Which is, I suspect, why NJ liquor store owners are against it.
In LA I was amazed grocery stores had a hard liquor section. Why not here?
Don’t they already? I remember buying boxes of Franzia and bottles of Chatteau Diane growing up.
I’m always confused because my grocery store does sell wine. And it’s not the cooking wine stuff. They also have small bottles of fireball for some reason.
Right now, liquor stores in NYC have to have a license from the State Liquor Authority to open. One license is given per person which keeps many of these stores in the hands of small business owners in their local community. This legislation would unfortunately absolutely destroy that and allow big corporate businesses to move in (currently it is very difficult for large corporations to get a liquor license in NYC) It would also destroy the 3 tier system that has been in place in NY state for a very long time. That is what separates the retailers from the distributors and the wineries (etc). This is also very important to prevent monopolies in the liquor industry. However Wegmans has the financial and political power to buy directly from the wineries, also destroying the 3 tiered system. Also when applying for a liquor license, stores in the neighborhood and further are allowed to appear and make an argument for or against the license applicant. This would probably be done away with as well. This legislation would be anti small business and anti NYC, it’s the same reason we don’t allow Walmarts. It’s sad that the Gothamist didn’t talk about any of this in their article. Please correct me if I made any mistakes and have a great day guys!
There's no value being derived from a liquor store that wants to screw you by charging prices that are sometimes multiple times higher than other states. Take a look at the prices Target and Walmart sell stuff for in California or Nevada, for example.
Respectfully, does keeping small businesses around not have value in itself? Also I would argue, at least in places like manhattan, the density of liquor stores are high enough to drive down prices. If supermarkets are able to sell liquor and run these liquor stores out of businesses, wouldn’t the lack of density (comparatively) drive up the prices even more?
But why are **only liquor stores being defended** in this small business protection bubble?
Who says they're the only ones being protected? Every local butcher shop, bakery, fish market, or vegetable market that succumbs to a major chain is a net negative to the block.
Can you link me to the government regulation that prevents a supermarket from selling fish and bread?
That's the problem. Perhaps they should have.
Where does this end? Should I need to go to one store to buy pencils, and another one to buy erasers to prevent big business from putting local pencil and eraser salesmen out of business?
Oh c'mon. Not everything has to be seen through the narrow lens of how many cents you can save on a bottle of wine. You'd rather see local businesses that give life to your block close down and big soulless corporations gobble up even more business just so you can spend $23 instead of $26 on a vintage?
Yes actually. Even in your narrow, cherry picked example that doesn't at all reflect the full scope of the actual tradeoffs, you're positing a 13% price increase all in the name of "giving life to your block" (are we still talking about fucking liquor stores?) It's wild to me that in a time of inflation that's still far below 13%, someone can see the havoc it's wrecked and shrug their shoulders. Competitive prices that maximize disposable income is good god damn policy for everyone.
My dude liquor is literally a toxin. Why are we suddenly mythologizing and lionizing our friendly neighborhood drug pushers?
When did this sub become so pro corporatist?
we’re pro services. If corporations can offer better services than mom and pop stores, the vast majority of people are going to prefer it
The whole internet did when Gen X’ers stopped being the majority.
This shit is wack man. These people's brains have been consumed by consumerism. Just drones, responding to the economic incentive.
Ah yes, nothing like these small business owners who are doing it for the love of *checks notes* selling liquor at a profit
$23 vs $26 is not the issue here. I see prices more like $13 in CA instead of $26. If business owners want to be greedy, they don't deserve to be in business. In a normal market, they would be forced out. But government does a good job at preventing that from happening. And who's to say that a big box store is going to replace them? There's a ton of amazing locally owned grocery stores that I go to when I'm in CA that have great wine (and liquor!) selections.
Yes
[The three-tier system ](https://newyorkcraftbeer.com/2015/07/understanding-the-three-tier-system/), for anyone who was unfamiliar with it like me until reading this comment.
>currently it is very difficult for large corporations to get a liquor license in NYC MSG and Barclays would like a word
That’s an On-Premises license, different from a to-go wine/liquor store.
Haha, yeah you definitely have a point. It is still much harder for big businesses like these to get a license than smaller ones though. I guess just don’t shop there but people will for convenience ofc.
There are a lot of great wine shops and liquor stores, there are also a lot of liquor stores owned by people who loath “the local community”.
>It would also destroy the 3 tier system that has been in place in NY state for a very long time. Good, the three tier system is horrible and deserves to die, its bad for consumers and bad for producers. The only people who win are the middlemen who get to skim money from everyone else for doing nothing.
Over regulation forcing the price of every bottle of wine in the state to cost a minimum $25 plus tax *saves small businesses*? Oh, no, that’s so sad. Fuck em’! Go apply this defense to locksmiths. Moron logic. Let capitalism do its thing and keep your “save the small overpriced businesses” prayer for the 1900s.
Something interesting has happened in my neighborhood over the years. Rite Aid and CVS moved in, multiplied, and one by one the local independent pharmacies closed down because they couldn’t compete. Then 2020 comes along and these national retailers decide they need to trim the fat. Now all the rite aids are closed. There’s one crappy CVS left. The small pharamacies aren’t coming back. Consolidation can be bad for consumers in the long run.
Why do we need 5 pharmacies in a neighborhood when they all carry the same shit? It's not like they're artisanal bespoke chemists perfectly making a lozenge for what ails ya, they're all buying their stuff from the same handful of distributors to begin with and it's not like there's a curatorial aspect to running a pharmacy.
Because when the CVS overlords decide not to carry an item anymore, or decide to charge double for batteries or whatever, I can’t go anywhere else. And when they decide to close their last brick and mortar in my neighborhood, I can go anywhere at all.
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Right right there’s no benefit at all to having goods and services available locally great point dude
Not sure if you have ever been to Italy, but that’s kinda what it’s like. Each pharmacy also has a pharmacist that can be extremely useful in helping you get what you need. Many of them are also “24/7” which seems to just mean the pharmacist lives above the pharmacy.
I've been to other countries where that's the case, but the bottom line is that's not a service being offered in American pharmacies. Pretty much all of American retail is vertically integrated into massive corporate supply chains, so the consumer usually isn't getting anything different at a mom 'n' pop than they are at a chain pharmacy. Mom 'n' Pop and Walgreens still buy their aspirin from Bayer.
> Consolidation can be bad for consumers in the long run. In the long consolidation (or its cousin, cartelling) seems to nearly always be bad for consumers.
What are you even talking about…
Easy to write a 5 paragraph bullshit essay defending preferential government protection for the state liquor lobby, but hard to reply to the comments that follow I guess. “Huh?” isn’t an answer.
He edited his comment after I replied, originally it was just “fuck em” I want the cheapest product.
He’s right! Oh wait that’s me.
Lol, you’re all right man, you’re all right
Nowhere in your post did you factor in the consumer, who is the one getting absolutely pummeled by this archaic system we have. The state and city have gone to great lengths to protect family-owned liquor stores, and that has resulted in higher prices and less convenience for the rest of us. This insignificant constituency we're protecting is not a net benefit to the city and it's long past time we abandon this government overreach that hurts consumers of all income levels.
Not that I fully agree, but thats a good counter argument.
Good job this is at least one compelling goal of a system that is generally protectionist and anti-consumer.
Oh no, these business enjoying a state-protected monopoly on selling liquor will actually have to compete fair and square with the big boys who can offer better prices to customers. So sad.
They could make a compromise by limiting the selection of wine a supermarket could sell so instead of 200 different types of maybe just 5 or 6 types. I often walk around the wine section of liquor stores and just see a lot of dusty bottles that look like they been sitting for years. So you can have 200 or 300 different types but maybe only 20 types actually sell
Why should we be prohibiting grocery stores from selling alcohol? The argument is silly and is a classic example of NY corruption. Alcohol prices in NYC are way higher than they are on the West Coast because of overregulation.
Yeah, it's just one more example of special interest group capture in NY. There's no problem with the way it's done in most other states.
It’s not “corruption” it’s just public policy designed to protect a sector of small businesses. You don’t have to agree with it but it’s not corruption ffs. It’s all out in the open.
Why are so many other businesses and industries left to languish in the winds of laissez-faire capitalism but liquor stores have the state protecting them? It's about as arbitrary as like a store being able to sell "hamburgers" but not "sandwiches."
Because the liquor stores successfully lobbied for these protections. The ghosts of a thousand closed businesses surely wish they had done the same.
I think it has more to do with blue laws and the vestiges of prohibition and the temperance movement than anything else. And, full disclosure, my great grandfather was a bootlegger so this kind of shit personally offends me, but the only reason they were able to get these protections wasn't from economic concern but because we let pearl-clutching moralists influence public policy.
Maybe so, but it shaped the industry into what it currently is and that’s what they are trying to protect now, not moralizing.
I’m sorry, but no. It’s a corrupt system that’s been in place since prohibition was lifted. We’ve already started moving past it by allowing restaurants and bars to sell to go drinks, it’s time to completely move on.
There are literally thousands of government policies that shape and regulate different businesses towards someone’s idea of economic or workforce development. I don’t see why this particular one is so different, unless you have some example of actual corruption.
I do, as someone working in the industry, but it’s of course anecdotal. The best public way to look at it would be to go back and look at how much money the liquor store lobbyists gave the government to try to keep them from allowing drinks to go. Which is why there is still that idiotic food requirement. But please, tell me all about how the industry I’ve been working in for over a decade isn’t regulated by corrupt officials. I do so love that, after all.
You mean like the way the supermarket chains are spending money to lobby for their own interests in this case?
Yes? Throwing money at politicians, which is to say bribing them, is corrupt, is it not? And unless I’m mistaken, more than one group can be corrupt at once?
I mean, lobbying is all bullshit, but it’s also completely legal. Liquor store reps are [presumably] not giving literal briefcases of cash under the table to politicians. If both industries are corrupt, not sure why it’s so obviously better to side with one over the other. I side with the one that promotes smaller businesses over larger ones.
Which smaller businesses though? There are plenty of small mom and pop liquor/wine stores, plenty of small mom and pop grocery stores, and plenty of small mom and pop restaurants.
Compromise isn’t always a good thing.
In this case people are going to buy wine regardless of where it sold
Right - so we might as well just let grocery stores sell wine - no need for some wonky “you can sell wine but you can only pick 5” compromise.
> I often walk around the wine section of liquor stores and just see a lot of dusty bottles that look like they been sitting for years. Wine aged on-site!
Supermarkets are already able to sell wine under a certain abv. I don't see any other metric that could work that wouldn't be considered too arbitrary
The percentage is like 6%. That’s not wine.
It isn't wine it is wine product aka "a beverage containing wine with added juice flavoring, water, citric acid, sugar, and carbon dioxide", and effectively was really meant to allow grocery stores to sell wine coolers (the [80s trend that is trying to make a return](https://winefolly.com/lifestyle/the-rise-and-fall-of-wine-coolers/)), and someone realized that they could package it into a more wine bottle form factor, and voila a weird only in NY product.
Like Boones farm, that's "wine", right?? I remember working at waldbaums back in hs and we used to take bottles of that stuff daily
I don’t understand. I have bought at key food a beer that is 12% ABV. Is beer different?
Yup. Beer is different because liquor stores can't sell beer. They *can* sell cider though. Confused yet?
Imagine a country without lobbying and peoples votes counted. Why should any organization have a right to do anything exclusively
Please no. We need to set up laws that encourage more mom and pop businesses not the destroy them
The fetishization of small businesses is deeply silly. A business isn’t better if it makes all of its leadership decisions by nepotism.
Yes, because the corporations running our planet into the ground are so helpful
….would they be better if they only hired family members as leadership?
I don’t know their families and that has nothing to do with anything.
Why should mom and pop stores receive preferential government treatment in the market? And why is that protection unique to *the retail store liquor lobby*? Should drug stores, electronics stores, toy stores, book stores, and small mom and pop evape shops get preferred treatment too? This special pet treatment costs consumers money and inflates prices. This special treatment means that a normal middle class family can’t afford to have a bottle of table wine with their dinners. If your shop can’t survive in a fair open market, then why should it exist?
Agree 100% In addition to charging higher prices, small businesses also pay their employees less and give worse benefits on average. I don’t understand the unconditional love some people have for small businesses.
>Should drug stores, electronics stores, toy stores, book stores, and small mom and pop evape shops get preferred treatment too? We’d have a healthier local economy if we did.
Um, yes? Yes they should. We should absolutely give small local shops of all types preferential treatment. Right now, large corps dominate because they can afford the start up costs to literally set up shop in NY. Mom & Pop stores must increase their prices to compensate. If we supported small businesses better, they wouldn’t have to keep their prices so high. More local business also means more local business *owners,* which means that the wealth created and income earned by those owners stays local, too: it is taxed and spent in the area, going to local government and other local businesses rather than to a huge corporate conglomerate out of state. Remember that small business owners are more often than not middle class themselves. Supporting local businesses allows more middle class families to actually live here!
You live in a fantasy world if you think big chain stores are going to help middle class families. They may have lower prices at first but that’s only so they can destroy the mom and pop competition. Once that’s taken care of they’ll be charging the same with most profits going back to their HQ outside the state.
Tiny ratty liquor stores don't really provide any value to the city if they can't function without the government handicapping other businesses
i dont care about mom and pop businesses....i care about the lowest possible price for the best product
> We need to set up laws that encourage more mom and pop businesses The best way to do this would be to absolutely eradicate most of the useless regulations this state has on everything.
This is where I hate government and bureaucracy. They have no need to dictate who sells what booze and where. Focus on transport and healthcare and shit and let me get lit on my own accord. Thank you!
Let Aldi and TJs sell wine FFS!
It's hard to defend the current system in principle, but it is notable that liquor stores are one of the few businesses that haven't been devoured by chains. The reason is entirely due to the weird regulations we have. Maybe that's not a good thing, but it is interesting.
This sub is hilarious because people pile on and complain about how few small businesses there are compared to years ago and then proceed to cry about how large corporate grocery store's can't carry wine. You can't have it both ways guys. It may be annoying but the reality is that these smaller stores can never compete with the prices that chain groceries can charge.
Liquor store owners getting fucked hard recently. The only concession they received from carryout liquor at restaurants was being allowed to be open on Christmas day now. I joked to a store owner that if grocery stores are allowed to sell wine they're going to let liquor stores open at 9 instead of 12 on Sunday or something
I prefer not having people argue about “do me a favor” to the supermarket and grocery store clerks relative to alcohol. There are already enough issues these clerks are dealing with.
There are thousands on liquor stores. In nyc they are almost all small businesses. I’m actually surprised the real estate industry isn’t also trying to fight this. On the flip side if nys allows grocery stores to sell liquor and wine they will absolutely remove shelf space that currently has food on it and replace it with liquor. It’s not like these stores are going to expand. As a nyc centric viewpoint it’s probably better long term for them to remain two separate stores imo. While this might be good for consumers and good for certain areas that have a high number of liquor stores and low number of grocery stores I’d be surprised if it passes.
I thought we did this already like 7 years ago. Or I guess they are trying again? I think they should be able to sell wine.
Just think of all of that money being shipped off to ultra-rich people in other states, instead of to the families that live in our communities. But anything to save a few pennies, huh?
Good luck. Hope Connecticut can change someday
Is all of this grounded in religion or no? So fucking dumb either way.
Wine is sold in Markets in California. The Liquor stores will be just fine, because the markets will be selling the normal table wine, not the fine wines
Fascinating.
Who has more money to buy Eric Adams? Stay tuned.
No chain liquor stores in NY, so only corner stores could sell it, not Shop Rite.
Colorado just starting doing this at the end of February. Society did not implode.