Wine in Supermarkets Bill Heads to Governors Desk

(March 4, 2014) Nashville, Tenn.- The wine in supermarkets bill has made significant progress in 2014.

In January, the Tennessee Senate passed the bill that will allow supermarkets to sell wine in their stores. The House passed their version of the bill in February.

As the proposal stands, the bill will allow cities and counties that currently have package stores or liquor by the drink whales to vote on wether they will allow supermarkets or convenience stores to sell wine.

Current law dictates that supermarkets and convenience stores can sell beer with a 6.5% alcohol by volume.

Anything stronger must be sold in package stores. Package stores cannot sell anything other than alcohol and lottery tickets.

This month, the Senate approved the minor changes the House made to the bill in February. Now that both the House and Senate have passed the legislation, it goes to the desk of Governor Bill Haslam.

According to the Associated Press, the Republican Governor has said that, if the bill comes to his desk, he will sign it.

You won’t be able to get your White Zinfandel from Wal-Mart just yet. The earliest you would be able to buy them would be 2016.

We asked Representative Jimmy Eldridge why that is. “The first part of that,” Eldridge began, “ is to allow your local communities to have a referendum. To be able to let the people vote on wether their community wants to sell wine in grocery stores.”

“However,” Eldridge continued, “the first part of that is the local referendum so that will be done this fall… That gives the package stores, because they’re the ones that are really affected by this, an opportunity and time to set up on how they want to structure their business.”

Eldridge continued, “This changes their footprint in quite a ways, because now the package stores, in the legislation, would allow them to sell products… certain food products, mixers. They can sell the Coca-Cola products and the club sodas and it even spells out in there that they can sell olives and cherries and limes and all of that. The question is, do they want to do that?”