ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York Association of Convenience Stores (NYACS) has decided not to support the wine in grocery stores bill currently before the Assembly as the Wine Industry and Liquor Store Revitalization Act, the Albany Times-Union reports. Convenience stores initially applauded the budget inclusion of a change that would allow convenience and grocery stores to sell wine.

The problem is that the governor??s proposal tied wine licenses to a medallion system to appease opponents of wine sales in grocery stores. This program would give liquor stores a specific period of time ?" three years to start with ?" in which they would receive two medallions or licenses to sell wine. The stores would keep one and sell the other to convenience or grocery stores that would submit bids on the medallions.

"The governor??s newly minted three-year run-up period during which food stores could obtain a wine license only by submitting the highest bid for a medallion dramatically alters the balance of the overall proposal, making it a bad deal for convenience stores," said Jim Calvin, NYACS president, in a statement.

"Our members simply don??t have the wherewithal to outbid Wegmans or Walmart for limited numbers of medallions. Certain supermarkets and superstores in a given community would grab them and start selling wine. Convenience stores would not only be left out of the wine business for three years, but they would immediately get new competitors in the form of liquor stores exercising a newfound ability to offer core convenience store products and services - bottled water, soda, snacks, cigars, ATM, etc. And c-stores could be frozen out of wine for another three years if the medallion period were to be extended.

"Coming on the heels of what the administration just did to us on tobacco taxes, this is unacceptable to our industry. Had we known that the final wine proposal would place convenience stores at such a distinct disadvantage, NYACS would have taken a different position at the outset," said Calvin.