about damn time...there's also a website for the push, http://www.redwhiteandfood.com.


http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/200...in-push-al low-wine-sales/?feedback=1#comments

Grocers begin push to allow wine sales

NASHVILLE ��" After mostly watching the issue from the sidelines over the years, the Tennessee Grocers and Convenience Store Association today launched its own statewide push for legislation allowing wine sales in food stores in the state.

Tennessee is one of 17 states that do not permit wine sales in grocery stores, restricting it to liquor stores and Tennessee wineries, which are allowed to market only the wines they produce. Five of the eight states bordering Tennessee allow wine sales in grocery stores.


The association of grocery and convenience stores has hired a public relations firm to help it build public support for the legislation through a campaign it is calling “Red White and Food.”

In addition, the legislation is being sponsored this year by by two influential members of the General Assembly. Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and Rep. Randy Rinks, D-Savannah, introduced a bill (SB3139/HB3451) at the start of the 2008 legislative session and will file an amendment defining a new license that allows retail food stores to sell wine.

Ketron is chairman of the Senate State & Local Government Committee, where a similar bill died last year when it failed to receive a motion for approval. Rinks is chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

The bill would allow wine sales in food stores that obtain a state license and only food stores in municipalities whose residents have ratified retail liquor package stores within their borders. In Shelby County, that includes Memphis, Arlington, Bartlett, Germantown and Millington. Towns and cities that ratify retail package stores in the future would also be eligible.

“We are only pursuing this option where wine sales are legal today,” said the association’s president, Jarron Springer. “This legislation does not allow every retail food store in the state to sell wine.”

For years in Tennessee, the state’s politically powerful liquor wholesalers and retailers associations have blocked legislative efforts for grocery store wine sales. When the bill failed last year, the wholesalers’ veteran lobbyist, Tom Hensley of Jackson sat on the front row of the Senate committee and after the bill failed to elicit a motion for approval, he told reporters, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Although the grocers association supported the bill last year, it was not active in trying to sway legislators. Public support for the legislation also appears to be growing, lawmakers say.

Danielle Elks, executive director of the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission, told a Senate committee Tuesday that her agency would regulate wine sales at grocery stores the same way it does at package stores if the legislation wins approval ��" but that she would probably ask the legislature to provide more enforcement agents.

It's amazing to see how regressive our state can be sometimes . . . Well, most times . . .