The issue of wine in grocery stores, (WIGS) was the final topic of Viticulture 2010, a wine and grape industry conference held last week in Rochester.
As a means to raise some $300 million in new revenues for the state, Gov. David Paterson has proposed a revised version of a WIGS bill that includes new benefits to liquor stores which might be adversely affected by the bill.
Naturally, this is an explosive issue, with the vast majority of liquor stores adamantly opposed, grocery stores in favor, New York Farm Bureau and grape growers in favor, and New York wineries divided.
The New York Wine and Grape Foundation does not take a position on this issue, but at the request of industry members wanted to provide an open forum where the different views could be heard and debated.
So representatives of these various groups were invited to be on a panel, each with up to 10 minutes to state their positions, followed by a question-and-answer session. Lorraine Hems of Rochester Institute of Technology was the moderator of the session.
Probably few, if any, minds were changed in the audience, as most people came in with strongly held views about what is in their best interest. And in any case, this issue is largely out of industry’s hands. So all this was is an opportunity to share and hear the different perspectives. Since the WIGS bill is part of the state budget proposal, we’ll probably know the outcome sometime in April.
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