KEPPELER: In (New York) vino, veritas?

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March 11, 2010

Anonymous The Tonawanda News Thu Mar 11, 2010, 12:33 AM EST

I like wine.

I like pinot grigio. I like merlot. I’m currently in the midst of a particular love affair with various forms of reisling. I even like white zinfandel.

I'm also a big fan of various forms of wine produced in New York state, from Bully Hill’s Love My Goat to Vizcarra Vineyards’ Red Creek Raspberry. (Yum.) I’m hoping to finally do a wine tour of Niagara County later this year.

Yeah. I like wine.

And that said, I will admit that I’m tempted by the notion of wine sales at grocery stores in New York state.

It would be great to be able to slide a bottle of chardonnay or two into the cart in the midst of the weekly grocery shopping, right there with the bread and milk and my sons’ beloved goldfish crackers. (Hey, they have their comfort foods, I have mine.)

Right now, picking up a bottle of wine means schlepping two active kids in and out of the car one more time — and dragging two annoyed small children into a big room full of glass bottles just isn’t a good idea for anyone.

I don’t usually do that. Maybe I dash in during the occasional solo errand. If I want wine, like everyone else, I find a way.

So, yes, grocery-store wine sales would be really convenient. I can acknowledge that.

However, I was thinking about the idea recently, trying to figure out where I stand. The liquor stores, for obvious reasons, have mounted a pretty big campaign against the idea.

I conceded some of their reasons, discarded others — after all, I really do like the idea on the convenience level. But I kept coming up against one big problem.

Think of the grocery stores in this area. Now, think of the non-chain, little-guy grocery stores that are left.

(Cue crickets chirping.)

Hmmm. Well, there’s ... no, that closed. But there’s ... hmm, that one too.

I can think of precisely one non-chain grocery store left in this area, actually. I wish it well, but I’m not sure how much wine sales would help, either. (One big question: Are the fees involved something that smaller stores could even afford?)

Now think of the non-chain, little-guy liquor stores.

I can recall at least a dozen off the top of my head — and no, that’s not a measure of my relative fondness for liquor stores. I see at least three just on my way to work in the morning.

This proposal? It could kill them. I daresay it would shutter at least a quarter, maybe more, before the year is out, and more as time goes on.

I just don’t see how taking sales opportunities away from smaller entrepreneurs and sliding them over to big ones really helps many people. And I don’t see why this would help the state all that much, either.

Sure, you’ve got your one-time influx of license fees, but we all know how quickly those would simply be subsumed by the black hole that is state government. Do you really think it will show up in any way that matters? I don’t.

It’s not going to hurt the behemoths all that much if they don’t get wine sales. And it’s not going to help the real people working at them very much if they do.

I rather doubt it would ever translate into raises for the rank-and-file workers and managers that need them. It’s going to translate strictly into greater corporate profits. And I think that most of us know that, what corporate gets, it doesn’t give back.

And I can’t see it translating into more jobs. The big chains might hire a wine expert or two, chainwide. Maybe add an employee or so at the bigger stories — but mostly, I’d guess, the work is going to fall right onto the mostly overworked-and-underpaid employees who are there already.

(My mom, who works at a grocery store in my hometown, succinctly summed up the idea as “a huge pain in the {butt.}” I did my time as a grocery store cashier. I don’t doubt it.)

Honestly, aside from the admittedly shallow (and probably somewhat selfish) conveniece reason, how does this help anyone?

It doesn’t.

I’ll run my extra errand like everyone else. The alternative isn’t worth it.

Jill Keppeler is a columnist and page designer for the Tonawanda News. She can be reached at jill.keppeler@tonawanda-news.com.

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