The Legislature's Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee is once again trying to craft a policy that will allow supermarkets and wine and beer shops to offer samples of alcoholic beverages to their customers. Although the committee worked on the issue last year, the Legislature added a provision that protects children from being exposed to alcohol tasting events. Many shopkeepers say that change effectively prevented them from being able to hold any beverage tastings. But that policy might be about to change.

As a long-time State House lobbyist for those engaged in the sale of alcoholic beverages, Ralph Peers has learned the art of diplomacy when dealing with lawmakers. And he used that skill to give his own assessment of a law passed last year to protect children from exposure to alcohol consumption during wine tastings.

"Clearly, the language that was adopted last year had unintended consequences," Peers told lawmakers. "I don't believe any of us foresaw what that language ultimately would result in doing."

Hoping to increase the sales of high-end wines, specialty beers and liquor, wine sale retailers and others who sell alcoholic beverages want a law that will allow them to hold wind and beer tastingson their premises. Peers, who represents the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and the Maine Wine Retailers Association, told members of the Legislature's Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee that large supermarkets with dedicated alcoholic beverage sections could hold them in those areas without kids under 15 being able to see them.

"Given the concerns, and obviously I think the grocers would have to agree to this, but conceivably, a possible solution might be to indicate that stores above a certain square footage and that have dedicated isles that are specifically for beer, wine or spirits, that tasting events that go on in those establishments would be confined and would have to be held in those aisles."

"The current law precluding the possibility of children viewing a tasting has had a serious negative impact on my businesses," said Scott Worcester, who runs Sawyer's Specialites in Southwest Harbor and another related business. He says that when he attempted to comply with the law that went into effect last September, it cost him money in lost sales.

"At our Bangor location, we have had customers after the fact apologizing for missing a tasting because they saw the windows covered in paper and thought we were either closed to remodel or out of business," he testified. "During a tasting in Southwest Harbor, I had to explain to a gentleman that he could not come into my store while carrying his infant, even to buy cheese and crackers, because I was conducting a tasting."

State Rep. Stacy Allen Fitts, a Pittsfield Republican, is one of two legislators who hope to correct the problems created by the current law. Fitts' bill would strike all of the language in the law that requires retailers to keep wine tasting out of a child's view. He says that those who are concerned about children being exposed to alcohol consumption at supermarkets are clearly out of touch with the marketing strategies of large grocery stores.

"The grocery stores, and the people who initially raised this as to why this was needed, they're not interested in creating an environment that's not comfortable for their customers," Fitts says. "They work hard to create an image as you enter the store. If alcohol tastings at a grocery store were a problem for them and their customers, they're going to respond to that and probably take actions on their own."

Members of the Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee are scheduled to continue their review of the wine tasting bills next month.