Connecticut Blooms With Wine

(WSJ) - The three years it took Congress to pass the country's health-care reform bill may have seemed never-ending, but it was nothing compared to the decades that Bob Heffernan, executive director of the Connecticut Florists Association, waited for his state to permit florists to sell wine with flowers.

"I asked for this back in the mid-1990s," said Mr. Heffernan of the bill allowing such gift-basket sales that finally passed into law almost two years ago. "Connecticut has long had restrictions on package stores," he said.

The restrictions included limits on the merchandise that could be sold in the stores as well as the hours and days that stores could be open. For example, it wasn't until two years ago that package stores were permitted to open on Sundays. The law allowing Sunday sales passed at the same time as the gift basket permit; the former may have made the latter possible, said Mr. Heffernan. When he was explaining to the Legislature how the law would work—that florists and garden centers would be buying wines from package stores—he said he heard people in the audience whispering "That's not so bad. That's actually good."

The package stores are direct beneficiaries of the gift-basket legislation, as the license requires florists to buy wines from wine shops or from state wineries. (Although florists must buy liquor licenses and meet the same conditions as any other permit holders, they are not allowed to purchase wines wholesale.)