Moon_wine_and_spirits
By David Walsh

By MATT BLOIS

After the bill became law last week that allowed liquor stores to stay open on Sundays, the owner of Moon Wine and Spirits in Brentwood put up a banner to let people know about the change.

Eddie Moon said he suspected the law would pass, and he had the sign ready ahead of time.

The sign didn’t last long. Someone from the city made him take it down, but he’s working on some signs that are within the rules to draw people in.

The law allows liquor stores to be open on Sundays immediately, but grocery stores, which started selling wine this past summer, won’t be able to sell wine on Sundays until next year.

Some liquor store operators say the law won’t have much of an effect on the bottom line. Adding an extra day might spread sales out rather than increasing them.

For the next eight months, liquor stores will have a slight advantage over grocery stores where Sunday sales of wine will not be permitted until Jan. 1. Moon expects that it will be harder for stores like his to compete once the big grocery stores start selling on Sundays too.

“The grocery stores and the big box stores have a captive audience already on Sunday,” he said. “If we just gave that up and started letting them sell wine immediately on Sundays then it would put us in a very tough spot.”

The sales there last Sunday looked like an average weekday, Moon said, and most of his customers were pleased with the change. He expects that opening on Sundays will increase sales, but probably not enough to make up for the business he lost when grocery stores started selling wine. He said he lost about 25 percent of his wine sales when that happened.

He thinks he can still draw in customers to the store because his employees know more about wine, and can help customers buy the right product. Grocery stores haven’t figured out how to  program the self checkout scanners to do that yet, he joked.

Donavan Barry, an employee at R & B Liquors in Nolensville, said that the store is looking for new staff to work on Sundays. The store wasn’t open last weekend, and won’t be until someone new comes on board.

Barry said that he heard some liquor stores saw a lot of traffic last Sunday, but he worried that those customers might have been attracted by the novelty of buying booze on a Sunday. He’s not sure the bump will last. 

David Greer, the owner of Station Wine and Spirits in Spring Hill, said he wasn’t optimistic about the change either.

“You did not create 100,000 new wine drinkers overnight. Your sales are not going to expand anytime in the near future,” he said. “I was born and raised in this state, and Sunday is for God and family.”

He wasn’t open last Sunday, but will be open this weekend. It’s hard to predict, but he doesn’t think the sales on Sunday will make up for the extra costs of running the store that day. Sunday was his only day off, and now he plans on hiring someone to help out that day. 

Like Moon, he said adding an extra day will probably spread sales out. He’s not all doom and gloom, though. Football season could boost sales.

The devastating blow has yet to come. The real fear is a bill that would allow grocery stores to sell spirits.

“They, in essence, will come here for spirits until spirits are allowed in grocery stores,” he said. “That will come. You will see small retailers go out of business.”