House Votes to Pass Wine in Supermarkets Bill
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – The House on Thursday voted to create a mechanism to allow Tennessee supermarkets and convenience stores to sell wine.
The chamber voted 71-15 to approve the years-long effort to grant authority to cities and counties that currently allow package stores or liquor-by-the-drink sales to hold referendums on whether to allow wine to be sold outside of liquor stores.
The measure would allow for local votes to take place as early as this fall, but would not allow supermarket wine sales until July 2016. The bill’s main House sponsor, Republican Rep. Jon Lundberg of Bristol, said that delay is necessary to give liquor stores a chance to prepare for the change.
The Senate, which passed its version 23-8 last month, is expected to go along with minor changes in the House bill and send the measure for the governor’s signature.
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam was not a supporter of allowing wine sales in supermarkets or convenience stores when he was running for office in 2010. But Haslam has said he will defer to the Legislature on the issue.
Before the final vote took place on the House bill, the chamber rejected several proposed changes that included efforts to including high-alcohol beer, move up the effective date up to next year and eliminate a mandatory 20 percent markup on wine sales.
Lundberg says those proposals would have derailed a carefully crafted compromise on the bill in which “nobody’s overly happy, because nobody’s come out as the sole winner.”
Under current law, supermarkets and convenience stores can sell beer containing up to 6.5 percent alcohol by volume. Anything stronger can only be sold in package stores, which can’t sell anything beyond booze and lottery tickets.
While the concept of supermarket wine sales has broad public support according to various polls, the measure had failed in several consecutive legislative sessions amid opposition from liquor wholesalers and package store owners.
But House Speaker Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, and Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, have been major proponents of allowing supermarket wine sales, forcing the long-resistant liquor wholesalers and retailers to the negotiating table.
