
Laura Babcock of Salisbury said she makes most of her wine purchases at Stateline Wine and Spirits in North Canaan, and she intends to remain a loyal customer.
Photo by Debra A. Aleksinas
Connecticut is one of eight states in the country that prohibits grocery stores and supermarkets from selling wine. But that could soon change, much to the chagrin of Northwest Corner package store owners. A decades-long battle over the sale of wine in grocery stores has resurfaced with renewed vigor and aggressive lobbying on both sides of the aisle.
A bill pending before the state legislature’s General Law Committee is seeking to expand existing grocery store permits to include sales of wine manufactured by small wineries. It also provides that no food store within 1,000 feet of an existing package store would be allowed to sell wine, and that all wine in supermarkets must be from vineyards producing 100,000 gallons a year or less, or about 43,000 cases.
Advocates said current laws limiting wine sales to independent package stores are arcane and shield them from the reality of modern commerce at the expense of consumer convenience; that 42 out of 50 states allow grocery stores to sell wine and that Connecticut state taxes, in the case of cooperative marketing, would net $1.7 million a year in 2023-2044, increasing to $3.6 million per year in 2045-2080.
The state’s 1,250 package stores, including many in the Northwest Corner, argue that the competition with major supermarkets will severely cut profits and threaten their livelihood.
Contentious public hearing
A public hearing on H.B. 5918 held on Feb. 2 drew hundreds of people to the state Capitol who gave more than six hours of testimony for and against the proposal, and hundreds more filled the Capitol’s atrium during the hearing.
Jean Cronin, chief lobbyist and executive director of the Connecticut Package Store Association (CPSA), gave testimony on behalf of package stores in the state, something she has done many times since the mid-1980’s, when the push for wine sales in food stores was first proposed.
“I commented how it’s not lost on me that this is Groundhog Day, because we’ve done this so many times before,” she said in a recent interview.
“The food stores are pushing it hard this year. They’re putting in a huge effort, and revving up consumers with massive marketing and media campaigns. But we also have a media campaign, so we are pushing back. The battle is on.”
State Rep. Maria Horn (D-64) said the latest debate, “seems just as heated as in past years, which, for me, pits local small business package stores, with at least one in every town I represent, against the Connecticut wineries.”
“The grocery chains, who are also fighting hard for this change, tend to be large, out of state and even international companies, so their interests are distinct,” Horn explained.
“We do have a number of Connecticut farm wineries in the district, however, and if there were a way to favor them explicitly, I would be pushing for that,” she said, “but the interstate commerce clause pretty much shuts down our ability to favor in-state businesses, so we cannot do that.”
Horn further noted that the General Law Committee has tried to express that concern by favoring smaller wineries, but, she said, “It’s an imperfect device as many large national wineries also own small brands that they can use to get around these restrictions.”
CPSA’s Cronin said Connecticut wineries are hoping that exposure in grocery stores will boost their profits. “They are putting a big push on products that don’t sell as well as they had hoped.” She said the
CPSA would be “ready and willing” to work with the wineries to help them better market their products.
Poll: consumers want convenience
Written testimony presented by Wayne Pesce, president of the Connecticut Food Association (CFA), which represents the state’s supermarkets including small, independently-owned stores to larger regional grocery chains, noted that a voter poll recently released from the University of Connecticut shows that 84% of the state’s consumers “overwhelmingly” support the option to buy wine where they purchase groceries.
“Customers continue to make their priorities and needs clear to the industry: consumers want choice and convenience when shopping. These dramatic shifts in customer shopping patterns and consumer demand are driving the need for grocers to adapt and offer the assortment and variety that today’s customer requires,” according to Pesce.
“You may hear the argument that every bottle of wine sold in a grocery store is a bottle not sold in a package store. This claim is patently false,” the CFA president wrote.
“If the law is amended, a fair portion of supermarket wine sales will be incremental, as wine in grocery stores in other states has shown.
“An amended law should allow package stores to sell a variety of highly consumable food products in order to recoup the potential wine sales lost to them,” Pesce said.
CPSA’s Cronin said change is unnecessary. It’s a “very convenient process” to get wine from one of state’s package stores, which are located in 162 of 169 towns and are open seven days a week for a total of 92 hours a week, she noted.
The CPSA lobbyist said small package stores are often the last of the stable, small businesses in their respective towns.
“They are supporters of local events, and part of the fabric of their communities. In many small towns they are the last small business left on Main Street. But this legislation will change all of that.”
Should the proposal pass, said Cronin, it would allow the over 850 grocery beer permit outlets to expand to sell wine, representing a 68% increase in the venues that can sell the most profitable product in a package store: wine.
“This is a game changer that will completely upend business plans and result in serious financial difficulties for many package stores,” said Cronin.
Déjà vu for Northwest Corner businesses
“Every year it comes up,” said Richard Bramley, who has owned and operated the Cornwall Package Store for the past 45 years.
Referring to the most recent battle over wine sales, he predicts that half of the state’s package stores “would be out of business in five years” if the new law passes.
“Wine is readily available in almost every town in the state in numerous locations, and there is no need to expand it. The grocery stores are not going to offer anything that is not already offered. I think Connecticut satisfies its consumers,” he said.
“Package stores are one of the last privately owned entities still on Main Street in every community and that is one of the crucial factors,” particularly in rural Northwest Connecticut, noted Bramley. If the only package store in a small town closes, he said, customers would be inconvenienced by having to drive 10 or 15 minutes to the next town over.
“The state does have the legislative power to prevent the demise of one of the last small businesses on Main Street,” said the Cornwall business owner. “How much do I have to lose before it’s not a viable business, 10 percent, 15 percent? But it’s not about losing my business, although certainly that’s concerning. The community loses, that’s who loses.”
Dan Chaves, who manages Stateline Wine and Spirits in North Canaan, which is located only a few steps away from Stop & Shop, said while his store is protected under the 1,000-foot distance clause in the proposed legislation, he still has concerns, because it could always be amended at a future time.
“If it ends up passing it could affect one-third of our business, and I have a lot of friends who own package stores and I’m worried for them. Wine is money.”
According to the CPSA, wine accounts for 30 to 60 percent of the overall sales of a package store.
On a recent Friday evening, Stateline customer Laura Babcock of Salisbury carefully placed two bottles of Pinot Grigio into her shopping cart. Babcock said she treasures the camaraderie of staff as well as their wine knowledge.
She said if wine sales are allowed in grocery stores, while she might occasionally pick up a bottle as she shops for food items, her loyalty lies with the small package stores.
“I am concerned for the small business owners and prefer to give them the business if the prices are the same.”
‘Consumerism is a nasty thing’
For Gregory Brick, Jr., owner of Goshen Wine and Spirits, wine is his livelihood.
In his written testimony, he explained that he worked two or three jobs for the better part of a decade just to have enough for a down payment on his package store, which he bought six years ago after his 26th birthday.
“When I bought my store I bought into a system that had a set of laws, not rules, laws. You can’t just change those laws due to pressure from outside groups,” he said in written testimony in opposition to H.B. 5918.
“Consumerism is a nasty thing that we are all guilty of, it’s wiped so many small businesses off the map and out of our lives.”
Brick said he didn’t get into the package store business to get rich.
“I’m far from it. I got into this work to be a small business owner in a small town, to span a generation, to ask how’s your day going? How are the kids? To talk football, to talk wine, whether you’re buying a bottle or cru champagne.”
He said he doesn’t blame wineries “for thinking their wine would sell better at a grocer than the liquor store next door. I don’t blame grocers for seeking new revenue streams. I don’t blame the consumer who could care less where they get something as long as they can. The problem is, all of that comes at the cost of someone else, someone else’s livelihood, someone else’s business, someone else’s family, someone else’s community.
The ruse of “customer convenience” and the statement “they do it in other states,” Brick said in his testimony, “is not a reason to change it in ours.”
The small business owner said he could never compete with the volume of a grocer.
“I exist based on the good will of my customers, my slightly isolated location and a state system that allows the sales of a few controlled substances in limited, regulated and approved locations. I shouldn’t have to lose sleep thinking the legislation, grocer’s association and local wineries who we’ve partnered with for decades is going to take that away.”
In the Northwest Corner, it is not unusual for grocery stores and package stores to co-exist in strip malls.
Such is the case in Sharon, where Sharon Farm Market owner Kim Choe said she would not be able to sell wine at her grocery store because it is located within 1,000 feet of a package store.
The owner of Davis IGA in Kent declined to comment, and the owner of LaBonne’s Market in Salisbury could not be reached for comment.
The 23-member General Law Committee has until 5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 21, to either move the proposal forward or vote it out of committee.
SHARON — Angela Derrick Carabine, 74, died May 16, 2025, at Vassar Hospital in Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the wife of Michael Carabine and mother of Caitlin Carabine McLean.
A funeral Mass will be celebrated on June 6 at 11:00 a.m. at Saint Katri (St Bernards Church) Church. Burial will follow at St. Bernards Cemetery. A complete obituary can be found on the website of the Kenny Funeral home kennyfuneralhomes.com.
Sam Waterston
On June 7 at 3 p.m., the Triplex Cinema in Great Barrington will host a benefit screening of “The Killing Fields,” Roland Joffé’s 1984 drama about the Khmer Rouge and the two journalists, Cambodian Dith Pran and New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, whose story carried the weight of a nation’s tragedy.
The film, which earned three Academy Awards and seven nominations — including one for Best Actor for Sam Waterston — will be followed by a rare conversation between Waterston and his longtime collaborator and acclaimed television and theater director Matthew Penn.
“This came out of the blue,” Waterston said of the Triplex invitation, “but I love the town, I love this area. We raised our kids here in the Northwest Corner and it’s been good for them and good for us.”
Waterston hasn’t seen the film in decades but its impact has always remained present.
“It was a major event in my life at the time,” Waterston said of filming “The Killing Fields,” “and it had a big influence on me and my life ever after.” He remembers the shoot vividly. “My adrenaline was running high and the part of Sydney Schanberg was so complicated, so interesting.”
Waterston lobbied for the role of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for years, tracing his early interest to a serendipitous connection while filming in England. Even before Joffé’s production was greenlit, he had his sights set on playing the role. “I knew I wanted the part for years even before it was a movie that was being produced.”
What followed was not just critical acclaim, but also a political awakening. “The film gave all of us an intimate acquaintance with refugees, what it is to be a refugee, how the world forgets them and what a terrible crime that is.”
In Boston, at a press stop for the film, two women asked Waterston a pointed question: now that he knew what he knew, what was he going to do about it? “I said, ‘Well, you know, I’m an actor, so I thought I’d go on acting.’ And they said, ‘No, that’s not what you need to do. You need to join Refugees International.’” And join he did, serving on the organization’s board for 25 years.
Both Schanberg and Dith Pran, whose life the film also chronicles, were “cooperative and helpful … in a million ways,” Waterston said. Upon first meeting Pran, Waterston recalled, “He came up to me, made a fist, and pounded on my chest really hard and said, ‘You must understand that Sydney is very strong here.’ He was trying to plant something in me.”
There were more tender gestures, too. Schanberg used the New York Times wire to relay that Waterston’s wife had just given birth while he was filming in Thailand, adding to the personal and emotional connection to the production.
Though “The Killing Fields” is a historical document, its truths still resonate deeply today. “Corruption is a real thing,” Waterston warned. “Journalism is an absolutely essential part of our democracy that is as under siege today as it was then. It’s different now but it’s the same thing of ‘Don’t tell the stories we don’t want heard.’ Without journalists, we are dust in the wind.” Waterston added, “Democracy is built on the consent of the governed but the other thing it’s built on is participation of the governed and without full participation, democracy really doesn’t stand much of a chance. It’s kind of a dead man walking.”
When asked what he hopes the audience will take away from the screening, Waterston didn’t hesitate. “This is the story that puts the victims of war at the center of the story and breaks your heart. I think that does people a world of good to have their hearts broken about something that’s true. So, I hope that’s what the impact will be now.”
Tickets for the benefit screening are available at www.thetriplex.org. Proceeds support Triplex Cinema, a nonprofit home for film and community programming in the Berkshires.
Scott Reinhard, graphic designer, cartographer, former Graphics Editor at the New York Times, took time out from setting up his show “Here, Here, Here, Here- Maps as Art” to explain his process of working.Here he explains one of the “Heres”, the Hunt Library’s location on earth (the orange dot below his hand).
Map lovers know that as well as providing the vital functions of location and guidance, maps can also be works of art.With an exhibition titled “Here, Here, Here, Here — Maps as Art,” Scott Reinhard, graphic designer and cartographer, shows this to be true. The exhibition opens on June 7 at the David M. Hunt Library at 63 Main St., Falls Village, and will be the first solo exhibition for Reinhard.
Reinhard explained how he came to be a mapmaker. “Mapping as a part of my career was somewhat unexpected.I took an introduction to geographic information systems (GIS), the technological side of mapmaking, when I was in graduate school for graphic design at North Carolina State.GIS opened up a whole new world, new tools, and data as a medium to play with.”
He added, “When I moved to New York City, I continued that exploration of cartography, and my work eventually caught the attention of the New York Times, where I went to work as a Graphics Editor, making maps and data visualizations for a number of years.”At the New York Times, his work contributed to a number of Pulitzer Prize winning efforts.
In his work, Reinhard takes complex data and turns it into intriguing visualizations the viewer can begin to comprehend immediately and will want to continue to look into and explore more deeply.
One method Reinhard uses combines historic United States Geological survey maps with “current elevation data (height above sea level for a point on earth) to create 3-D looking maps, combining old and new,” he explained.
For the show at Hunt Library Reinhard said, “I knew that I wanted to incorporate the place into the show itself. A place can be many things.The exhibition portrays the exact spot visitors are from four vantage points: the solar system, the earth, the Northwest Corner, and the library itself.” Hence the name, “Here, Here, Here, Here.”
He continued, “The largest installation, the Northwest Corner, is a mosaic of high-resolution color prints and hand-printed cyanotypes — one of the earliest forms of photography. They use elevation data to portray the landscape in a variety of ways, from highly abstract to the highly detailed.”
This sixteen-foot-wide installation covers the area of Millerton to Barkhamsted Reservoir and from North Canaan down to Cornwall for a total of about 445 square miles.
For subjects, he chooses places he’s visited and feels deeply connected to, like the Northwest Corner.“This show is a thank you to the community for the richness that it has brought to my life. I love it here,” he said.
The opening reception for the show is on June 7 from 5 to 7 p.m. On Thursday, June 12, Reinhard will give a talk about his work from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the library.“Here, Here, Here, Here” will be on display until July 3.
Scott Reinhard’s 16-foot-wide piece of the Northwest Corner is laid out on the floor prior to being hung for the show. L. Tomaino