By Victoria Merlino

The daughter of a millionaire booze mogul has her sights set on College Point, leaving fearful mom-and-pop liquor merchants, a delegation’s worth of flip-flopping legislators and political dollars in her wake.

Michelle Trone, a 31-year-old entrepreneur, wants to open an alcohol megastore called Total Wine & More at 30-02 Whitestone Expressway, the site of a former Toys “R” Us. Total Wine is a $3 billion national chain that sells alcohol at low prices and was founded by Trone’s uncle Robert Trone and father David Trone, a U.S. representative from Maryland.

In an interview with the Eagle, Michelle Trone said that the Costco of cocktails will feature over 1,400 locally sourced wines and 350 spirits, hold tastings and events and offer around 175 jobs to the borough.

“There’s nothing like it in Queens at all,” she said.

But the bourbon and bubbly big box store has local liquor shop owners worried about their own businesses.

Alex Melamudov, owner of Corona liquor store Phoenix Spirits, said smaller businesses will take a major hit from the "large, predatory, corporate entity.” Melamudov told the Eagle that Total Wine would shut down smaller vendors like “shooting fish in a barrel.”

“We being competitive businesspeople, we only ask for a level playing field for us to compete,” he said. Melamudov stressed that many liquor store owners were immigrants trying to make it as entrepreneurs. “The Walmart of liquor,” as the New York Post characterized Total Wine, would kill local businesses, he said.

"It would destroy our nest eggs, basically,” said Melamudov, noting that many in the industry sink their lives and earnings into their businesses.

Melamudov also said that Michelle Trone’s application was “deceptive.”

“This particular application is not a springboard into entrepreneurship," he said.

Boxing out small business

Though Michelle Trone stressed that she will own this particular Total Wine outright if the state approves her application for a liquor license, the Trone brothers own the rest of the Total Wines found throughout 23 states. Though it will be Michelle Trone’s business, it will use the Total Wine name and branding.