In six of the seven states that border Kentucky, shoppers can pick up a bottle of wine to accompany dinner without leaving the grocery store. Now a coalition of grocery chains, including Kroger and Bowling Green-based Houchens Industries, wants to make that legal here, too.
Article originally posted by The (Bowling Green) Daily News directed to:http://www.bgdailynews.com/articles/2008/10/19/news/news4.txt
Grocers looking to put wine in aisles
Kroger, Houchens among those pushing for change to state law
By JIM GAINES, The Daily News, jgaines@bgdailynews.com
Saturday, October 18, 2008 11:55 PM CDT
In six of the seven states that border Kentucky, shoppers can pick up a bottle of wine to accompany dinner without leaving the grocery store. Now a coalition of grocery chains, including Kroger and Bowling Green-based Houchens Industries, wants to make that legal here, too.
About 400 to 500 stores in Kentucky would be eligible to sell wine, according to Luke Schmidt, lobbyist for the Food With Wine Coalition. The group seeks a change in state law to allow such sales in areas that are already “wet” or “moist” – in this region, that would only allow sales in Bowling Green.
Schmidt said the campaign isn’t aimed at selling alcohol where it’s now prohibited, selling hard liquor in grocery stores, or allowing Sunday sales; groceries just want to sell wine as they do beer, without setting up a separate building for the product.
That adds a convenience factor for customers, which should increase wine sales in general – helping Kentucky wineries and bringing in more tax revenue, said Stephen Reed, director of retail operations for Houchens.
“Food and wine are really more connected than even food and beer, which is already allowed,” he said.
Far from all of Houchens’ stores would be affected, Reed said.
“It does not include convenience stores,” he said. “It would include our Crossroads stores that are smaller-box but still full-line grocery stores.”
There are about 100 such stores – but only 10 percent to 15 percent of those would sell wine, since the rest aren’t in “wet” areas, Reed said. He’s not sure how many of the company’s stores would be affected overall, since many of them are not in Kentucky; and wine would not be sold in Save-A-Lot or Food Giant stores Houchens owns, Reed said.
Schmidt acknowledged that liquor stores oppose the change, but said they should see some benefit, too, from greater wine consumption in general. Groceries wouldn’t likely carry high-priced or specialty wines, which would remain exclusively available at liquor stores, Schmidt said.
Tristan Evans, manager of Chuck’s Liquor Outlet on Louisville Road, said alcohol retailers aren’t entirely happy about having a competitor for wine sales, but acknowledged there might be some small upsides for the wine market – “There’s logic both ways,” he said.
More concerning to Evans are regulations that create a potential double standard.
For instance, spirits have to make up 90 percent of each liquor store’s sales in Bowling Green, while local grocery stores wouldn’t be held to the same rules, Evans said.
“If they’re selling wine, it’s probably going to be less than one-half of 1 percent of their product,” he said.
Schmidt said allowing wine sales in groceries would promote Kentucky wineries, a growing industry. In 2007, there were vineyards in 84 of Kentucky’s 120 counties, including Simpson, according to information from the coalition.
Reed said Houchens has no estimates of how wine might increase the company’s sales or what tax revenues it might generate; but Schmidt said that statewide the change could produce $55 million in new state tax revenue – without raising rates – between 2009 and 2013.
Of Kentucky’s border states, only Tennessee doesn’t allow wine sales in grocery stores, though there’s now a push there, too, Schmidt said.
Reed, one of the planners of the legislative effort, said store owners are still talking about how to best approach the General Assembly.
House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, D-Louisville, prefiled a bill in the Spring 2008 session to allow wine sales in groceries, but it never got out of the Licensing & Occupations Committee. House Bill 585 would have allowed wine sales in stores which occupied at least 10,000 square feet and had a minimum inventory of $20,000 in meat, produce, dairy and frozen products, subject to a $500 license fee.
Brian Wilkerson, spokesman for House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, said legislators have been discussing the idea in general terms this fall, but knew of no bill ready for filing.
On Friday, Clark’s office relayed a statement from Scott Jones, his chief of staff, saying he would not comment on the issue at this time, or on whether HB 585 might be re-filed.