Whine merchants
Massachusetts' big liquor wholesalers and local package-store owners are digging in, preparing to spend millions to protect their turf against the supermarket chains, which are making yet another run at breaking into the lucrative wine business. Their public message, as euphemistically expressed in the name of the mom and pop package owners' campaign committee: ''Stop Alcohol's Further Extension To Youth," or SAFETY for short.
That's how they will sell their campaign against the big, bad grocery chains, which are pushing their own well-financed ballot question this fall that would allow food stores to sell wine. But to understand what is really going on here watch not the focus-group-tested sales pitch but what the package store operators are saying to one another. In the monthly newsletters from the Massachusetts Package Stores Association for January and February, there is not a single mention of underage drinking. No, the point is unmistakable:
''WE WILL FIGHT TO STAY IN BUSINESS," the newsletter shouts, urging members to send in their donations to stop the grocery stores.
The bottom line of what will be a very expensive ballot contest is all about the bottom line. You would be hard pressed to find a more protected industry than liquor. With amazing success, those who control the booze business have fought to keep things the way they are. And why not? The neat three-tiered liquor distribution system -- suppliers, wholesalers, and retailers -- has assured everyone in the game a comfortable, protected living.
The ballot initiative would create a new class of liquor licenses for food stores that want to sell wine. It would also end the quaint custom of limiting any individual or corporation from owning more than three liquor licenses, which has blocked the big grocery chains from selling wine in most of their stores. The new licenses would not include hard liquor and beer. Local communities would continue to have jurisdiction over liquor licenses.
Ballot initiatives are a lousy way to make law. If the Legislature were to show a little spine, it would do the right thing for consumers -- and not necessarily the politically wired distributors and package stores. But don't count on it. The Legislature recently passed a law that will allow Internet wine sales -- a good thing -- but it was written so narrowly that it turned out to be a victory for the distributors and retailers, not consumers.
Opponents of the ballot question -- United Group's boss, Raymond Tye, prominently among them -- say that allowing grocery stores to sell liquor would mean that the local liquor store would go the way of the local hardware store, the local pharmacy, and the local stationer. So what? Home Depot, CVS, and Staples have all expanded my choices and cut my costs. Why should the local liquor store have any more protection than the hardware store, the pharmacy, or the stationer?
''What is at stake is a system that works," says Larry Rasky, a spokesman for the package store owners. ''There is an established regulatory structure that has local merchants and local communities working together, with respect to law enforcement, with respect to keeping local communities in control of their own destiny."
The system works, that is, for the liquor wholesalers and the package stores. They worry that if wine is allowed in grocery stores that beer will be next. And why not? Most other states allow it now.
Neither side has a lock on virtue. This is all about limiting competition, not limiting underage drinking. (Fun fact: At least five package store operators who contributed to the SAFETY campaign were cited for liquor sales to minors in 2003 and 2004, state records show. One store was cited twice.)
More competition is good for me -- if not for the corner package store. Competition usually drives prices down, not up. The distributors and the package stores know this all too well.
Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com. 
