San Antonio – Gov. Greg Abbott asked Texas businesses on Saturday to stop selling Russian products in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
“I’ve asked the members of the Texas Restaurant Association, Texas Package Stores Association & all Texas retailers to voluntarily remove all Russian products from their shelves,” Abbott tweeted Saturday. “Texas stands with Ukraine. #StandWithUkraine”
With restaurants and liquor stores singled out in his Tweet, one of the most likely targets of product pulls would be Russian vodka, at which the governors of Ohio and New Hampshire have also taken aim.
I’ve asked the members of the Texas Restaurant Association, Texas Package Stores Association & all Texas retailers to voluntarily remove all Russian products from their shelves.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) February 26, 2022
Texas stands with Ukraine.#StandWithUkraine
John Steves, the manager of Hargrove’s Fine Wine and Spirits, said his store had already been planning on pulling its handful of Russian brands, though it hadn’t yet done so.
“I cannot believe the Russians are pulling this stunt and we stand with the Ukrainians,” Steves said. “So we will be pulling all of the Russian products and we will not ever be ordering any more.”
Diana Keele, a customer at Hargrove’s, thinks it’s a good way to show support.
“It’s all about the money at the end of the day, to some extent. So I think it’s the right thing to do,” Keele said.
But although vodka and Russia may be permanently linked in Americans’ minds, many of the best-known brands in the United States are not produced there, as USA Today and the Philadelphia Inquirer have reported.
Even Stolichnaya, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, is made in Latvia -- a NATO member and when a Kansas liquor store removed Stoli vodka in protest over the invasion of Ukraine, KSNW reached the Stoli Group reached out to the owner to say as much.
“With regard to us being Russian, we are absolutely NOT a Russian company,” Damian McKinney, Stoli Group global CEO wrote in a letter. “We are a global organization with a significant portfolio of spirits and wine brands from around the world, with Stoli’s European Global HQ based in Luxembourg. Stoli Premium and Elit are manufactured and bottled in Riga, Latvia.”
The Stoli Group has also posted on its website “Stoli Group stands for peace in Europe and in solidarity with the Ukrainian people #LiberateUkraine.”
How many will follow Abbott’s request is yet to be seen. KSAT 12 visited six liquor stores on Saturday evening and Hargrove’s was the only one to go on the record with that stance.
Still, Steves sees it as the store doing its part.
“Well, what else are we going to do? I’m a little old to be taking up arms,” he quipped. “We all have to do what we can do. And that’s all we can do, but we can do that.”