‘This doesn’t make sense any more’: why you still can’t buy wine in New York supermarkets

A liquor store in Queens, New York. State restrictions on wine sales date back nearly a century. Photograph: Jeff Greenberg/Alamy

In New York City, you can now buy marijuana from colorful smoke shops. But here in America’s largest metropolis, you still can’t legally buy a bottle of wine from a grocery store.

The restriction dates back to the end of prohibition, and while most other US states have done away with similar laws, it has remained on the books in New York for close to a century, baffling visitors and frustrating residents.