Wine could be on grocery store shelves as soon as this summer, if one Tennessee representative has his way. On Monday, Representative Bo Mitchell (D-Nashville) filed a bill to shorten the timeframe by one year for the implementation of wine sales in grocery stores.
HB2011 would move the sale date up from the previously approved date of summer 2016. When the “wine in grocery stores” bill was passed by the Tennessee General Assembly last year, it allowed liquor stores, which have lobbied against wine sales in retail shops, to begin selling non-alcohol and low-alcohol products immediately. But the bill pushed wine sales in grocery stores to 2016, contingent on the measure passing individual referendums in Tennessee cities. That referendum passed in Memphis in November.
