Instead of creating a whole new system of specialized stores to distribute marijuana when it becomes legal, New York should just allow existing liquor and wine retail outlets to sell cannabis to adults. That’s the position of a new advocacy effort launched by owners of booze shops in October 2018.
“With more than 2,000 wine and liquor stores from Buffalo to Montauk, we offer existing retail space with quick and cheap access to the market in every corner of the state,” reads the website for the group, which is called The Last Store on Main Street. “That means more tax revenue, and sooner, for the State to fulfill basic responsibilities and invest in the future of our neighborhoods.”
The group, which previously defeated an effort to allow wine sales in grocery stores, says that its members’ shops “operate under a highly regulated system that can easily and reasonably be expanded to cover marijuana retail without building a new bureaucracy that only serves to eat into the tax revenues the industry creates.”
Jeff Saunders, the group’s founder, said alcohol retailers are worried that unless they are allowed to sell cannabis, their revenues could suffer.
“Recreational marijuana sales have resulted in significant declines in wine and liquor sales in other states, resulting in job loss and even stores closing,” he said, according to the news outlet New York Upstate.
On the group’s website, New Yorkers who agree with the goal of allowing cannabis sales in liquor stores can send pre-written letters to their state lawmakers that describe the move an “obvious win-win opportunity for a bedrock industry of New York’s Main Street economies and the future of our state.”
The effort to shape how legalization could roll out comes as the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is taking steps to bring about the end of marijuana prohibition.
Earlier in 2018, Cuomo directed the state Health Department to study legalizing marijuana, a move that led to a report that found that doing so would have more benefits than risks.
State officials are conducting a series of listening sessions around the state on the topic, and the governor created a task force to draft legalization legislation that lawmakers can consider in 2019.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are already holding hearings on ways to end cannabis prohibition.
This article has been republished from Marijuana Moment under a content syndication agreement. Read the original article here.
