The Finger Lakes

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NEW YORK, NY February 7, 2011 – The Last Store on Main Street, a statewide coalition of small businesses, wineries and unions, today praised Assemblyman Joseph Morelle for his honest assessment of Wine in Grocery Stores as a fiscal one-shot that will not help solve the State’s budget issues.

“While we disagree with Assemblyman Morelle on this issue, he demonstrated his integrity with his accurate assessment that WIGS will not help avoid budget cuts and do little to provide long-term resources for the State,” said Jeff Saunders, coalition founder and president of the Retailers Alliance. “For Assemblyman Morelle to acknowledge this idea, from a budget perspective, is little more than a gimmick should put to rest the idea that WIGS is some sort of a budget panacea.”

During an interview on Capitol Tonight last week, Assemblyman Morelle suggested the WIGS issue was best debated after the budget is resolved because using it to restore budget cuts would amount to a fiscal one-shot that would only leave a budget gap next year. He said those are the kind of gimmicks that caused problems for the state in the past.

Michael Correra, a coalition leader and president of the Metropolitan Package Store Association, said “We hope the Big Box lobbyists who are claiming WIGS will help save everything under the sun from budget cuts were listening, and will start telling the truth about this bad idea. Even as a one-shot, it would mean far, far less than alleged benefits the greedy grocers are claiming, but Assemblyman Morelle has made clear this is not a solution to New York’s budget woes.”

Stefan Kalogris, a coalition leader and president of the New York State Liquor Authority said, “Governor Cuomo rejected this idea because he knows it’s a gimmick with devastating impacts, forcing more than a 1,000 stores to close, putting 4,500 private sector workers out of work, setting back the growing winery industry in New York and increasing underage drinking. The Legislature rejected it twice, and with Assemblyman Morelle’s honest assessment of its fiscal benefits, we know the Legislature will keep this bad idea bottled up.”

While greedy grocers make wild claims about revenue, they fail to account for the loss of revenue from sales, business and income taxes, along with increased costs for unemployment. In addition, WIGS backers also fail to account for the costs associated with increased underage drinking, which now costs the state an estimated $3.2 billion annually.

No state in nearly 30 years has approved legislation legalizing the sale of wine in grocery stores, with Kentucky, Tennessee and Colorado joining New York in the last year in rejecting efforts by Big Box stores to take over this business.

Contact: Heather Swift  (212) 681-13802) 681-1380

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