HARTFORD, Conn — Small business owners in the liquor industry say this proposal is coming at a time where small businesses are already struggling to make ends meet and although consumers may have more options it's businesses owners that will have to pay.
Carroll Hughes said, "It's like the reverse Robin Hood Bill, it's taking the little people's money and giving it to the giants."
Hughes is from the Connecticut Package Stores Association and he says the organization is against HB 5155.
According to the bill, it'll help customers gain easier access to locally made farm wine, but package store owners say this would wreck their industry and many would lose out on jobs.
Hughes said, "In Connecticut, we have 2,000 people per package store, those store, if you open up that business to other locations and that averages out to about 5,000 we're going to have 700 less stores. We're not going to have 1,250 there will be closer to about 500 stores left in Connecticut and that's a lot of the 15,000 employees we have that will not have a job any longer."
Small businesses like One Stop Liquor in Manchester say they also don't agree with the proposal.
Nilay Shah who is the owner of One Stop Liquor said, "Connecticut is one of those few states that has protected small businesses, especially the liquor stores, and if they pass this law where everybody can sell the beer and grocery stores can sell wine. It's going to hurt a lot of small businesses a lot of people are going to go out of business."
Folks at the Connecticut Food Association disagree.
Wayne Pesce said, "Our goal is not to put anybody out of business from a grocer standpoint... our goal is to compete with the online competition that is all around us."
The state's food associations say they don't see how this proposal will hurt small businesses quoting the state's minimum price statute where stores can't sell items, in this case, wine, below cost.
The association says their data shows people only coming into grocery stores for convenience and other stores including liquor stores will still have their profit from sales.
Pesce said, "The State wins because there is revenue, more tax revenue for the state, the small business owner who owns the package store will win because they are a subject matter expert and the people who want to come in and talk about wine and understand the value and learn about the blend... they are going to go to the package store."
The proposal still needs to make it out of the joint committee on general law.
At this time, no public hearing has been made available, if that changes we will get back to you with more information.