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"I've read the good professor's report. It is bogus research. Given I own a Master in Marketing Science and work as a Senior Executive in the data and analysis industry, I am an expert with credentials to question his study. What are your credentials.
The good professor used data from 40 years ago, didn't account for economic environment change and applied no variant to account for negative impact of big box retail that has been researched and document by numerous institutions.
Despite every attempt to massage his forecast, he still came up with a 32% loss in sales for liquor store. The number is more likely 50%-60% when factoring in big box retail impact with their lobbying efforts for tax breaks from government that aren't afforded to small business.
Last year, Wal-Mart received $2 Billion in tax subsidies from taxpayers. Do you not understand how this impacts fair competition and negatively impacts the principles of capitalism when the big and powerful get breaks mom and pop don't receive.
I am not against wine in groceries. I am against the ongoing destruction of our economy by eliminating small business so companies like Wegmans can increase their profits while not hiring one new employee.
You get Dan Wegman to give back the tax breaks and end his expedition to repeal the Death Tax, I am happy to give him the wine. Unfortunately, he won't agree to this because given back the millions in tax breaks won't be offset by wine sales.
I just want to see liquor store be given an even playing field. This proposal doesn't provide for this until Wegmans gives back the tax breaks."
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"The New York Farm Bureau is lobbyist firm that doesn't represent the wine growers or liquor stores. They are funded by grocery stores. This is not an independent third party. It is a propaganda arm of the grocery stores and they spend millions of the ill-gotten taxpayer proceeds on false advertising. They are nothing more than a front for Wegmans to do the dirty work.
Grocery stores that evade paying taxes are horrible companies. Grocery stores that only allow employees to work 29 hours to evade health insurance costs and pass them on to the taxpayers are horrible companies. Owners of grocery stores that lobby Congress to repeal the Death Tax and pass the cost onto their customers are horrible companies.
Tell me why any company that pads their bottom line with tax breaks and eliminates jobs should get anything more from the NYS taxpayers?
Wake up and smell the coffer Suarez. Its companies like Wegmans that are helping destroy the NYS economy."
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"Professor Rickard is 35 year old professor with ZERO worldly experience whose nose has been pressed in a book trying to earn a phD. His is a Canadian, which means he knows little about the American business system other than what he read in books and his background is in Horticultural Marketing, not in retail business or Economics.
Rickard is just a paid for schlub to misrepresent data for others gain. Where do you think he gets his grants? He gets them through taxpayer dollars (Gov. Patterson's office) and through corporate donations (Big-Box grocery stores).
There is no reason to believe anything that comes from a life long academic whose barely been published and just recently got hired by a good university. He needs to earn some street cred before babbling at the mouth about fantasy theories that support those who will give him his next grant."
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"Jeanst, get your facts straight. Oregon's growth happened due to sales outside of Oregon. Nobody lives there so the sales didn't come in state. NYS wineries need to do a better job marketing themselves out-of-state rather than relying on the government supported distribution system that was built for them.
When grocery stores get wine, that government supported distribution system is gone. NYS wines will lose their place on shelves to California, Washington and Oregon wines, as well as bottom-shelf brands.
You just proved the point why this legislation cannot pass. Not only will liquor stores go down, but so will a slew of wineries that will have to begin find new distribution of their wine out of state but thus far have had no success. The liquor store of NYS are the only reason why these wineries exist because their sales predominantly come from NYS where in California, Oregon and Washington they are predominantly from out-of-state."
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"Lets get this comment trail back to where Rocman had it. Gov. Patterson only talks about revenue in his proposal, not costs. As taxpayers, shouldn't we be demanding the Patterson provide costs as well? We need to take into account unemployment, medicaid, lost taxes on the sale of spirits, tax losses on real estate developers that lose tenants and a whole slew of other costs, both short-term and long-term.
The $100M Patterson discusses is one-time fee. It does nothing for NYS.
If we want to right our problem, lets focus on Empire Zones, where the Grocery Stores are lobbying to keep their tax breaks. Here's a little story about the misbehavior of Wegmans:
http://www.wxxi.org/ntk/Transcripts/2009/0424.html
Wegman's happily took $204 million in taxpayer-backed financing where their consideration was to create jobs. The report shows they created one job at $43,000 per year.
This is tantamount to fraud and this is where we need to demand changes. Why should we give the grocery stores anything when they are influencing politicians for pork-barrel kickbacks and not creating jobs.
Grocery stores don't create jobs. They are selling a necessity that will be purchased down the street somewhere else. Every grocery store that opens causes job losses, not gains. And every new product they carry transfer sales from elsewhere.
I propose that if grocery stores want wine, then in return they need to rescind all tax breaks they are receiving from the government and taxpayers.
It is not likely grocery stores would agree, as they would cause them to have to sell their products at the same price as mom and pop given they no longer would be subsidized by taxpayers."
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"Those on this board supporting the kook Rickard should read his study in full detail:
http://www.wine-economics.org/workingpapers/AAWE_WP48.pdf
The basis of the study utilizes data from the 1960s and because there is such a dearth of data, he actually introduces data from other countries, including his home of Ontario, Canada.
Lets look at the huge mistakes in his study:
=> He used prehistoric data which had no relevance to the current economy. Typically, data this old is used for historical trending, not forecasting.
=> He didn't account for the relative accessibility of wine and the impact of this variable. Previous states saw over a 1000% increase in access, which is not the case in NYS. The states of Maine, Idaho and NH had about 200 liquor stores combined in their states. You basically had no access to wine, which is not the case in NYS. In NYS, you walk down the shopping center walkway to the store 2 door down from the grocery store.
=> The data doesn't account for the impact of Big-Box retailing. Big-Box retailing took hold in the late 1980s and all data used was prior to this important American Economic phenomenon.
As a result, his research is fatally flawed, and to be frankly honest, Cornell should shut him down because the research is an embarrassment to the university because it is intellectually dishonest.
Rickard is clearly scrambling hard to get published. As an Assistant Professor, you have 5 years to get published substantially and he doesn't appear to have been published since being hired by Cornell."
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---------------------------------------------------"Beckner, you unfortunately know little about how big box retailing works. I worked for one in executive management capacity, a Fortune 150. New York Wineries will not see the shelf at Wegmans, that is reality. NYS wineries cannot produce wine at the price Wegmans will pay for it. With liquor stores, wineries set the price, with grocery stores they don't.
The research study by the Cornell professor is fraudulent. It uses erronous data and modeling techniques. I sent an email to Cornell requesting that Rickard be asked to explain his decision, they refused to respond. They know it is bad research.
Your interest is for yourself. This isn't about you or more, its about taxpayers. Wine in grocery stores will increase sales of wine in NYS by 1%-2%. Any other belief is pure nonsense. NYS residents are not being robbed of access, there are thousands of stores to buy wine. More outlets does not equal more sales. The hillbillies in the backwoods aren't going to buy wine over beer, and that is the only new access you get.
The proposal has a negative net revenue impact to the NYS budget. Gov. Patterson refuses to put out the offset costs about the loss of 5,000 jobs. Reason for that is that it is a negative to NYS taxpayers.
This proposal has been put out there as a budget deficit fix. It is not and lets not insult people's intelligent. It is flat out bribery pay-for-play politics. Small businesses should not be caught in the crossfire.
Put together a proposal that protects liquor stores at risk, which are those next to a grocery store. Lets require Wegmans to pay retail price for the medallion when they are within 1-2 miles of a liquor store. You get no increased sales from cannibalization.
Such a proposal falls on deaf ears, because Wegmans doesn't want to pay for the economic damage they cause. No more tax breaks, no more freebies. Wegmans needs to offset the damage on their books if they want wine. The NYS taxpayers have already given enough money to the Wegmans family."
---------------------------------------------------"Rickard's actual published study can be found at the following link:
http://www.wine-economics.org/workingpapers/AAWE_WP48.pdf
The first thing we have to take into account is that Rickard has ZERO experience in economics and is a lifelonf academic. Also, Rickard is Canadian and lack practical experience with the American economy, his experience is based on what he read in books since he hasn't lived here his whole life.
That aside, Rickard took data from 3 to 4 decades ago and used it to predict tomorrow. He didn't account for differences in the industry and didn't factor in the impact of big-box retailing. He also didn't properly factor in the expansion of access either. His model is completely overstated.
Any growth in sales volume will likely be in the neighborhood of 1%-3% overall at best. The cannibalization of wine sales by grocery stores will likely be over 50%. All this bill does is push the sales of wine from the liquor store to the grocery store.
I sent an email to Rickard and the University President to explain why these variants were omitted and I got no response. That kind of gives you the sense of where Cornell is coming from, paid-for-research.
What I find comical in this debate is nobody is talking about spirits. Where are we going to get our Bailey's and Jack Daniels when 40% of liquor stores are wiped out overnight. What kind of price increases can we expect? Everyone keeps talking about wine, let's talk about spirits.
Myself I prefer a White Russian after dinner to a glass of wine. Right now I pay $22 for a bottle of Kahlua. Can I expect to pay $40 now so Wegmans can profiteer on cannibalized sales?"
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