Liquor, Wine & American Spirits

In Albany, Governor David Patterson’s time has been all but consumed with fighting off demands for his immediate resignation. Lawmakers and political aspirants from all ideological camps have been quick to judge the Governor’s actions, regardless of investigative results. Amid this political turmoil, however, the very real issue of passing a New York State budget has been left all but forgotten by the local and state media. As for Mr. Patterson’s involvement in the domestic violence case of one of his closest aides, only time will tell. The Governor’s proposals for the 2010-11 budget, however, are immediately available for public scrutiny and should be closely examined before adoption. Among the Governor’s many ill conceived propositions to reduce New York State’s budget deficit, one such plan has the potential to not only fiscally impede Long Island’s small business community, but to irrevocably damage the rich historical character of its commerce.
Long Island and New York City are unique to the Nation in their large proportion of independently owned, service oriented businesses. In virtually every shopping center or city block can be found a local restaurant, a boutique, a pizzeria and a liquor store. Though the Governor’s new budget does, in fact, propose new taxes on clothing and “high in sugar” beverages, it does not foretell the immediate ruin of the local food and apparel industries. The same cannot be said, however, of New York’s liquor store community. Governor Patterson’s plan to legalize the sale of wine in grocery stores, delis and bodegas, would virtually thrust the iconic symbol of the “Mom and Pop” liquor store, into the ash heaps of history.
Proponents of the Governor’s plan to bring wine into the supermarkets at the peril of the small businessman, claim an estimated $300 million in State “new franchise fees” as justification. But these numbers are questionable at best and are one time fees only. Notably, these figures do not reflect the inevitable loss in State revenue due to so many liquor stores going out of business, leaving owners and employees alike, on the unemployment line. Due to the supermarkets’ colossal buying power, many distributers will also find themselves left irrelevant, as wines will now be purchased in bulk, direct from a few favored wineries. The long term fiscal benefits of these measures would be marginal at best, and in all likelihood, neutral. Essentially, the State would be borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. But the damage this proposal could inflict on New York’s unique commercial spirit is immeasurable, and should prove the true argument of dissent.
Since America’s inception into nationhood, its citizens have continuously possessed the unique outlook of linking commerce and self-sufficiency to virtue and self-employment. America, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, was predominantly agrarian in nature. To own one’s own farm, was the premier goal of most Americans. But unlike most nations of the era, Americans were not content to simply utilize their crops to subsist their family’s needs. Most of these farm owners aspired to create surplus goods which would enable them to partake in small-scale business endeavors. When famed historian, Alexis de Tocqueville, visited America from France in 1831, he was impressed to find that “almost all farmers of the United States combine some trade with agriculture; most of them make agriculture itself a trade.”
Though America is no longer an agriculturally based society, its basic cultural aspirations have remained unscathed. Most of New York’s farms of old, have been traded in for Colonials and Condominiums, but the essential principle remains. Virtually all American Citizens still yearn to own a home and dream of, one day, opening a business for themselves. For most, these aspirations will remain simply a dream, but it’s a quintessentially American dream and one worth striving for.
Governor Patterson’s plan will only prove to destroy one of New York’s last independently-owned small business industries. It will achieve this with little to nay long term benefits for the State, selling New York’s entrepreneurial soul for a onetime cash infusion. It will further serve to make extinct the small business owner who is willing to labor at his or her shop, day and night, to earn a decent living. He or she will be replaced with more 8 to 5 jobs with no prospects of commercial expansion. This will prove to further stifle the innate industry of New York’s small- business class and diminish its ability to create new jobs.
Small business is the driving force of New York’s economy and its entrepreneurial class is willing to subject itself to tremendous strain in exchange for autonomy of commerce. To pass legislation which would unquestionably harm an industry with such historic and cultural significance to the State of New York, would prove not only rash, but caustic to its character. As if it weren’t bad enough having Albany tax our sugars, our payrolls and our salts, it now wants to take from us the one thing we New Yorkers have left……our spirits.

Jeremy Pitcoff
Smithtown Republican Committeeman