The Red White and Food blog has a new home at www.redwhiteandfoodblog.com.
It only took us three years to discover WordPress themes. Sheesh!
Thanks to all our readers. We hope that you will continue to follow the campaign’s progress on the new blog. BTW, we’ve added the ability to subscribe via e-mail as well as RSS.
Thanks again for all your support.
~ The Red White and Food Team
WRCB-TV in Chattanooga has released an statewide poll of registered voters. One of the questions was about this issue and whether Tennesseans support a change.
Should Tennessee allow the sale of wine in grocery stores?
Yes – 62.34%
No – 27.14%
Undecided / Don’t know – 9.38%
Our opponents love to say, “This change is for the convenience of a few people.” Well, this is the second independent poll showing that 62 percent of Tennesseans support the measure. That’s definitely not all Tennesseans, but it’s certainly far more than a few.
We’ll be at the polls first thing in the morning (or at least after we get coffee). We encourage all Red White and Food supporters to do the same.
By now, most of you following this issue know that Costco decided to build a store just across the Georgia line from Chattanooga because it’s not allowed to sell wine in its Tennessee stores. So, those jobs (construction and store) and tax dollars are now headed to Georgia.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press is conducting a poll about whether Chattanoogans will shop at the Costco. The answer looks like a big yes.
Unfortunately, this happens all across Tennessee. Five of the eight states bordering Tennessee (Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virgina) allow wine sales. Residents who live on the borders of these states often shop for groceries outside of Tennessee. One of the reasons is they can buy wine where they buy food. That’s business that Tennessee has lost.
Are the Georgia liquor stores owners crying foul about big box Costco? Not at all. This is from a previous story about the Costco choice:
Steve Gilbert is sure his wines will keep selling well, despite the news that Costco is moving in just minutes away. He says the selection and service at Dodge City Liquors in Brainerd will win out with customers. “We have service, they won’t, we have selection, they won’t. We probably have 150 different chardonnays, 100 merlots, the grocery stores aren’t going to have those.”
Our lobbying team is in frequent contacts with candidates across the state. We’re hearing that wine in food stores is a popular topic on the campaign trail and one of the first questions Tennesseans are asking candidates at public events.
If you’ve talked with candidates, let us know what they said in the comments below.
Election season is the perfect time to let all candidates — incumbents and challengers — know that Tennesseans expect action on this issue.
Thanks to our Red White and Food members and our other supporters for your passion.
Last week, the Johnson City Press asked its readers to share their opinions about selling wine in retail food stores. To date, the newspaper has published eight responses. We’ll let you decide which side came out the winner.
For
Against
The Tennessee Baptist Convention has every right to weigh in on this debate. And they have. Again and again. And again.
The latest missive from the TBC is worthy of some review and breakdown. We simply can’t resist.
The best line of the whole thing…
“Ask [legislators] to be courageous and display compassion by not giving in to a powerful lobby motivated by greed.”
Amen. The liquor lobby has held consumers hostage…Huh?…He’s not talking about the liquor lobby?…No!
Alcohol and politics make interesting bedfellows. We knew this already, just as we know that “bedfellows” is a funny word.
The Economist recently wrote about the debate in Virginia as to whether to privatize liquor stores. Virginia is one of nine states where liquor stores are part of state government.
The only reason this discussion can take place is that liquor is a weird kind of good…
The issue is not related to Red White and Food. Virginians already enjoy the choice of buying wine in food stores. As do the residents of 32 other states.
Read the aptly named article, “America’s Weirdest Government Monopoly.”
In case you haven’t seen this, it’s another one of the postcards from the opponents of wine in food stores.
We’ll go on record as agreeing with them that wine and milk do not mix into a good drink. That would be awful. Just awful.
We’ll also disagree. The mixing of wine and milk in a business sense has happened successfully in many other states — 33 to be exact. And, this lethal concoction has occurred without eliminating all the liquor store jobs as our opponents claim would happen in Tennessee.
So, maybe, wine and milk do mix. Most Tennesseans think it’s a good idea to try.
