Amazon’s coming for your neighborhood wine shop

There’s a movement under way to put your favorite wine and spirits shop out of business. Big multinational corporations like Amazon and bigbox stores like Costco and Walmart are trying to take control of the liquor supply chain. They use their money and political power to influence elected officials and weaken the laws that have protected New York’s families for years.

My family-owned business has served Brooklyn since 1934. We in the industry have seen this coming as lawmakers parrot the language of the predatory monopolists, using words like “modernize” as code for eliminating businesses and dominating the market for liquor. While we had our suspicions about their plans, now we can read Amazon’s nationwide strategy to take control of the U.S. liquor market in their own words.

A confidential Amazon memo recently leaked to the press outlines Amazon’s plans to sell alcohol from coast to coast and ship directly to consumers, even describing New York as requiring a “high degree of effort.” Amazon describes how the pandemic created an opportunity to change the law, and how concerns about “consumer safety” could play to their advantage. That’s right: As New York’s business community struggled to survive during one of the darkest periods in recent history, Amazon was plotting how it could take advantage of our suffering.

Amazon’s plans could make it easier for minors to purchase alcohol. For example, alcohol is not permitted through selfcheckout in California, but Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology is not considered selfcheckout in that state. This means that a teenager purchasing alcohol at Whole Foods could just walk out of the store. Anticipating action from the United Food and Commercial Workers to close this loophole and protect unionized cashiers, the memo states, “We will need to employ ... existing resources

in the state to defeat this measure, as it will be a highly-politicized union issue.”

The most underhanded part of Amazon’s efforts is its use of shady tactics to disguise its lobbying activity and keep it hidden from regulators. The company funded “R Street,” a right-wing front group, to “be the public face of overall reform efforts” as it engaged in “higherprofile, higher risk activities.” Amazon wrote that R Street “… can shield us from sensitive issues … providing cover when involvement by large retail brands is detrimental to progress.” Who knows what other hidden, deceptive practices they are funding to hide their lobbying?

Amazon is banking on the fact that people are so addicted to delivery of the products we like that we will let them destroy other businesses. But as Amazon continues to grow more politically powerful, we can’t sit by as they close small businesses like the one that my family worked hard to build over the last century.

Support your local businesses, help your local wine and spirits shops, and protect our kids from underage drinking.

Keep our liquor laws strong and don’t let deceitful lobbying campaigns by big businesses hurt our communities.