NY authorities clamp down on liquor store openings – Business News
New York authorities are clamping down on openings of wine and liquor outlets citywide — as booze gross sales get hammered by all the things from tariffs to rising competitors with marijuana, The Post has realized.The State Liquor Authority, which controls the place new shops can open, is rejecting up to 70% of license functions this 12 months out of concern that new shops might help put present outlets out of business, in keeping with attorneys who signify Big Apple liquor retailers.
This summer time in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant enclave, Rand Liquor Store challenged a competitor’s software for a 138-square-foot store at 296 Nostrand Ave. to reopen on its turf. The tiny store had closed in 2023 as a result of of a dispute between its homeowners, in keeping with the lawyer representing the applying.
Daniel Posner, proprietor of Grapes the Wine Company in White Plains, NY. Daniel Posner
In an Aug. 6 listening to in Harlem, SLA Commissioner Lily Fan sided with Rand and clamped down on the proposal.
“The landscape has changed significantly since the prior store closed,” Fan mentioned on the listening to. “I’m not sure that this area can justify another store.”
New York alcohol gross sales have plunged by as a lot as 25% this 12 months, with new tariffs on imported liquor and wine threatening to compound the decline, in keeping with New York liquor license legal professional Max Bookman. That’s on high of a similar-size drop final 12 months, he mentioned.
“When liquor stores are forced to compete with each other like other businesses, [the fear is] they will offer alcohol at extreme discounts and turn a blind eye to underage customers,” Bookman advised The Post.
Some liquor outlets are making the painful calls themselves. Retailers have voluntarily “surrendered” a minimum of 106 liquor licenses to the SLA this 12 months, The Post discovered by a Freedom of Information Act request. That left 3,330 retail licenses statewide as of Aug. 25.
New York State Liquor Authority Commissioner Lily Fan is worried concerning the liquor business. SLA
“More liquor stores are closing or are for sale,” liquor license legal professional Robert Swetnick, who repped Rand earlier than the SLA, advised The Post. “It’s not a lucrative business like it used to be.”
Alcohol consumption has plummeted nationwide as 53% of Americans are actually satisfied even average consuming isn’t healthy versus 28% a decade in the past. Wine has been notably arduous hit, as youthful clients choose spirits, beer — and more and more, hashish, in keeping with analysis on altering shopper tastes.
Adding insult to damage, wine shops have been pressured to raise costs after the Trump administration this summer time imposed 15% tariffs on most European vintages.
“We have six different things working against us and tariffs are making it that much harder,” mentioned Daniel Posner, proprietor of White Plains, NY-based Grapes the Wine Company.
This Brooklyn store satisfied the SLA that the addition of a tiny store in its neighborhood would hurt its business. Google Maps
While New York bars and eating places can open subsequent door to one another, wine and liquor store openings should serve the “public convenience and advantage,” in keeping with state law. The Nostrand Avenue store in Brooklyn was among the many newest to get its license software rejected.
At the SLA’s June assembly, the authority turned down Kosher Corks’ bid to open a store in Fresh Meadows, Queens, which might have competed towards A to Z Liquors throughout the road, at 185-11 Union Turnpike.
In February, the company blocked one other store, fifth Ave. Wines & Liquors, from relocating only one block nearer to a competitor — Red’s Wine & Spirits at 7516 fifth Ave. in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
Commissioner Fan identified that Red’s gross sales data confirmed that it made $34,000 much less in 2024 than it did the 12 months earlier than.
Grapes the Wine Company in White Plains, NY, has elevated the quantity of cheap wines it affords. Google Maps
Global demand for wine is estimated to be at its lowest stage since 1961, in keeping with the International Organization of Vine and Wine.
US wine gross sales had been down 8.7% during the primary half of the 12 months, in keeping with an August report from Wine & Spirits Wholesalers. Demand for spirits fell 6% by quantity during the identical period, whereas beer consumption fell 0.8%, in keeping with NIQ knowledge.
Winfield-Flynn Wine & Spirits, an icon in Murray Hill, Manhattan, quietly shut its doorways a number of months in the past after 74 years. A serious distributor had sued it for $100,000 in unpaid payments. Wine Geeks in Armonk, NY, shuttered its doorways in March after 15 years.
“Our business and the entire industry has been in decline since Covid,” homeowners Derek and Carol Todd mentioned in a YouTube video on the time.
Wine Geeks closed its doorways for good after a 15-year run in Armonk, NY, mentioned homeowners Derek and Carol Todd. YouTube/Wine Geeks Armonk
Other shops are pivoting in the direction of inexpensive bottles to keep gross sales flowing. Sip NYC on Manhattan’s Upper East Side ran a 25%-off sale on expensive Burgundy wines that had been gathering mud on the cabinets, its proprietor Justin Loeb advised The Post.
The sale moved $20,000 price of Burgundy — though it was no bonanza, he mentioned.
“We basically didn’t make a profit on our Burgundy and I’m putting that money [from the sale] towards other products that cost less,” he defined.
Now it’s discounting expensive Italian wines, offering a 2018 Uccelliera Brunello Di Montalcino for $56.24 — down from $75 — and a 2018 Syrah, Tua Rita Keir Toscana, for $104 from $140.
“We saw the same situation during the recession of 2008 and 2009, but people were drinking more then,” mentioned Loeb.
Wine Geeks liquidated its whole store in March. YouTube/Wine Geeks Armonk
Loeb is utilizing the income from these gross sales to stock his cabinets with more common, “name-brand stuff” together with Josh Cellars wine, he mentioned. Grapes The Wine Company can also be chopping back on expensive vino.
“Hundred-dollar-plus bottles are dead and no one is buying $50 cabs,” Posner mentioned, utilizing the nickname for cabernet sauvignon wines.
His store, which is thought for high-end French vintages, has doubled its stock of bottles costing $25 or much less.
“Wine is not cool anymore,” Posner mentioned. “When are we going to make wine great again?”
