
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, December 11, 1993                   TAG: 9312110039
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

WINE SELLER URGES PROBE OF ABC BOARD

Gov. Douglas Wilder should investigate whether the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board is in cahoots with wine wholesalers, a Washington, D.C., discount retailer said Friday.

"There is a very substantial question about the integrity of the board," said Herbert H. Haft, owner of the Total Beverage retail discount stores in Northern Virginia.

In a letter sent Thursday to Wilder, Haft said the ABC Board "has allowed itself to become the captive of the very industry it is supposed to regulate."

The governor has not received the letter, Wilder spokeswoman Lisa Katz said Friday. The ABC Department had no comment on the letter, said spokesman Robert Chapman.

Haft, chairman of the $1.2 billion Dart Group, filed a price-fixing lawsuit against five Virginia wine wholesalers in federal court in October. One of the defendants is Blue Ridge Beverage Co. of Salem.

Blue Ridge Beverage Vice President Bob Archer said he is not surprised by Haft's call for the governor to investigate. He said the defendants "will just have to wait and see how the governor reacts."

He called Haft "a big bully retailer who is trying to change the rules of Virginia."

Haft also is fighting a wine wholesaler before the ABC Board over the right to buy wine at the lowest price he can find from any wholesaler in the state.

Haft said a lawyer for the Virginia Wine Wholesalers Association had "engaged in frequent and regular communications" with the board and its employees.

"Members and agents of the board may have been exposed to extrajudicial influences that may affect the board's ability to render a fair and impartial decision in this matter," he wrote.

Documents from the Virginia Wine Wholesalers Association's files indicate the state's big wine dealers had discussed among themselves how to deal with competition from Haft's cut-rate wine stores and others.

Haft's dispute with the Virginia wine establishment turns on the state's Wine Franchise Act, which allows wineries and wine suppliers to grant wholesalers "primary areas of responsibility," but also permits the wholesalers to sell anywhere in the state. It further forbids the suppliers from setting up dual wholesale distributorships in any one area.

Staff writer Mag Poff contributed to this story.

by CNB