Partly. He and a partner own a majority stake.
NY SLA = A solution in search of a problem.
I don’t know NY law but in il. Any partner over 5 percent must be listed.
You’ll be pleased to know they can sell corkscrews, carriers and glasses now.
You didn’t mention that you couldn’t use a credit card for wine or liquor in NY in those days. Cash or check only. That had changed by the time I moved here in 1993, but I remember having to pay cash when I visited in the 80s.
Like one of the articles stated, a payment/fine will suffice, this is about enforcement of a ludicrous law and the penalty associated with it.
I think many of the odd US alcohol laws were passed after Prohibition, and were an attempt to keep organized crime out of the bar/restaurant business. ‘Tied houses’ are legal in the UK, though (breweries owning pubs).
"…But in the previous case cited in this regard by the NY SLA, the ruling concerned a producer of wine who was also trying to obtain a retail license for the sale of wine in New York, and the NY SLA ruled against them in that case. It may be possible in this case that the concerns of the NY SLA are once again focused on the prohibition against being both a producer of wine (in whatever country) and a retailer of wine in New York State. If there has long been a Bastianich winery, why have these concerns been raised only recently? It may be because of the retail wine shop connection, as the retail operation, which currently displays the Bastianich wines on its homepage, opened fairly recently.
Whether or not the Eataly wine shop will close for six months in the future may be decided on March 25, but it is unlikely that the result will be a license suspension for any of the restaurants associated with Mario Batali or Joe Bastianich."
Having read both linked articles the details seem fairly clear. Mrs. Bastianich will lose her ownership in the wine shop, they’ll pay a sizable fine and none of the Batali or Joe Bastianich restaurants will lose their licenses if they plead “No Contest” this week.
It also appears the Bastianich’s are tough NY business people. Babbo is one of my favorite restaurants in NYC… best veal chop I’ve ever put in my mouth. They also serve up the best Manhattan you can possibly imagine.
FIFY
Looks like this was fairly spot on:
Eataly wine store to close in liquor-license dispute
Chef Mario Batali agrees to settle charges brought by the State Liquor Authority. The closure will last six months and include the payment of a half-million dollar fine.
“West 23rd Street, which sells some 1,000 vintages of Italian wine.”
Now that’s a deep store list!
Yep. I’ve been backfilling the 1229 and 1313 Brunellos. Underrated vintages, IMHO.
Sort of. Actually, the government forced the breweries to divest most of their pubs in the 90s to increase competition among different brands of beer. I don’t believe any of the brewers own any significant number of pubs now, in part because the brewers have merged down to a few global companies that don’t see themselves as being in the restaurant business.
Big chains of pubs were created by the brewery spinoffs and later mergers. Some were or are publicly traded; many were owned by private equity firms. Many began morphing into hybrid pub/casual restaurants with a greater emphasis on wine. (I covered a lot of pubs mergers when I worked in London in 99-01.)
The Campaign for Real Ale says that about 1/3 of pubs are owned by breweries, and they (CAMRA) are agitating for a change in the law. More than ‘sort of’, I would say, although possibly less than 30 years ago.
It appears that the Batali-Bastianich situation is that they have been punished for attempting to subvert New York’s three-tier system in which producers are required (in most cases) to sell their wines through a licensed wholesaler (as in Maryland where I have been involved in retail ownership).
In Maryland, the lobbyists dispensing the most cash to politicians in the legislature are those representing the alcoholic beverage industry. Anything that smacks of diminishing the 3-tier system’s near monopoly is immediately attacked and squashed.
I don’t blame the Batali-Bastianich group for their efforts. However, when you tangle with a giant monopolistic industry, you’d better have a ton of money behind you and be prepared to do battle for a long, long time.
MrBigJ
Penalty announced for Eataly. No mention of the other places.
Very true.
This story actually made it to national business news on MSNBC this morning. At first I thought it was a plant by their PR folks as it basically said it was because of “antiquated liquor laws” but they called the offending party a “manufacturer” of wine three times and no PR person would use that term.
![[winner.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/07ec25c9fd71159fe15d7f1ba5fad64e91238d0e.gif "winner"){kind=small}
So they were grand guys even before they shutdown Falltacular.