Wine is wonderful.

I grew up in suburban Chicago. Grocery stores had liquor sections, which always had that seedy sort of look…I remember being taken inside in a cart. It was dark, kinda shady, but now it feels like a dream. Sure, moving to Tennessee was a HUGE culture shock…I still stare blankly at anyone who utters the word “pocketbook” in my presence. Now that I am 21, I can really notice things things…what is up with the weird liquor laws in the state of Tennessee?
Beer is in grocery stores. Beer is not in liquor stores. Wine cannot be shipped to your house. It’s a misdemeanor to go get that wine from a North Georgia winery. I get carded for beer, yet I don’t get carded for wine…and I look like I’m 17. SO THANK GOD SOMEONE IS TRYING TO CHANGE THIS CHAOS.
I love the people over at Red White and Food, a group working to get grocery store wine sales in the state of Tennessee. I love them even more after I won a best tweet contest. Seriously guys, seriously…why not wine? Sadly it all comes down to what can only be described as a lack of logic…it is the liquor stores who are against it, and of course the religious folk….and the very odd people elected to represent us commonfolk.
Let’s begin with the liquor stores. They may not be an exact a monopoly in an economic sense as they are not producing anything, but they sure have it down quite well…they do not want competition. Competing with other liquor stores? That’s fine. But OH MY GOD GROCERY STORES? Get out your flawed logic, men! (A lot of the following comes from the Red White and Food twitter updates from the House State & Local Committee meeting on Tuesday.)
First off there’s that whole monopoly thing, right? Competition is a beautiful thing, especially when, you know, it becomes $27 million for the state.
So what have we heard about from them…oh, job loss. Because a grocery store having a half aisle of wine is really going to have that effect. Right to the south in Georgia, they sell wine in grocery stores. People still go to liquor stores. It’s not like people ONLY go to liquor stores for wine…Not sure if they’ve checked to see that they have shelves of oh…maybe liquor?
“Wine is not food.” Well, toilet paper isn’t food. Condoms aren’t food. Magazines aren’t food. Yet I see all these things in the grocery store. (I’ve just given them a new thing to not be allowed in grocery stores, haven’t I?)