SURVEY QUESTION:
Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal

Should grocery stores be allowed to sell wine, strong beer and other alcoholic products?

Yes
70%

Yes for wine, but nothing else
14%

No
13%

No opinion
1%

The Business Journal conducts an unscientific online poll every week, posting the results in the box to your right on this page.
This week's poll about selling wine in grocery stores was extraordinary on two accounts. First, the more than 1,700 votes we received is at least triple what we normally get.

Paul Kaspszak disputes the results of our poll, pointing out that the grocers e-mail list "is bigger than my list. They're out there looking for e-mail addresses through their big public-relations campaign." His membership e-mail list is "a couple of hundred people."

So what do I think about our poll? It's curious that 70 percent want grocery stores to carry all forms of booze. So if many of the "yes" votes were influenced by the grocers' e-mail, they didn't stick to the script.

But considering the lobbying, be skeptical about the results.