Convenience and grocery stores intent on increasing their share of Colorado’s liquor market have a new tactic this year: deflate the David- versus-Goliath defense that liquor shops traditionally use to fight off proposals to expand the sale of full-strength beer, wine and liquor.
For two years running, lawmakers have been swayed by liquor store owners’ predictions that giving competitively advantaged supermarket chains and convenience stores the keys to the liquor cabinet would put their mom-and-pops out of commission.
But a bill allowing corner stores to stock full-strength beer, up for a first hearing Wednesday, excludes corporate-controlled grocery stores and instead pits one small- business group against another, advocates say.
And a plan grocers introduced Friday allowing themselves to buy out liquor stores and their licenses for five or six figures means a few hundred liquor store owners could hit a jackpot.
Tom Curcio, who owns Happy Canyon Wine and Spirits in Denver, nonetheless sees both proposals as a threat to his 5-year-old business, located in the same parking lot as a Safeway and a Conoco gas station.
Curcio and shopkeeps like him say the bills would cause job and profit losses.
“I’d have competition in the same parking lot,” said Curcio, who chairs the Colorado Licensed Beverage Association. “I don’t anticipate selling. This is all I know how to do.”
Last year, liquor store workers and convenience-store employees faced off for hours in committee hearings, telling tales of future economic carnage. The bill then on the table would have given grocers and convenience stores the ability to stock higher-alcohol suds.
In divorcing from supermarkets, convenience stores hope to improve their shot at selling high-alcohol beer.
Convenience stores will say that recent legislation that lets liquor stores stay open Sundays took away demand for low-alcohol 3.2 percent beer, the only variety they can sell.
Liquor-store operators will argue that, because they can own just one store each, they are at a disadvantage when it comes to marketing and purchasing power.
When faced with those arguments in 2009, lawmakers said they’d have supported the legislation if supermarkets were excluded, said Jason Hopfer, lobbyist for 7-Eleven and Circle K shops in Colorado.
“Legislators have been saying this is going to happen eventually,” Hopfer said. “In this economy and with what’s happening in this business market, it’s even more important that it does happen. It’s an argument of fairness.”
On the grocery-store front, supermarkets hope that enough liquor retailers will be swayed by the prospect of a lucrative sellout to garner support for the legislation.
Advocates point out that a grocery store couldn’t team up with sister stores to buy in bulk or share warehouse storage space, the same restrictions under which liquor stores operate, said Sarah Kurz, spokeswoman for a coalition of supermarkets.
“Unlike previous proposals, this doesn’t really pit the grocery stores against the liquor stores,” Kurz said. “The liquor stores stand to really benefit. For a lot of them, this sounds really nice.”
There are about 1,600 liquor stores in Colorado, according to Jeanne McEvoy, president of the Colorado Licensed Beverage Association. For about 350 of them — the estimated number of grocers who would be able to buy them out — the legislation could be a good deal, she said.
But the rest will suffer lost foot traffic and big competitors in an already troubled market, McEvoy said.
“You have 300-plus lottery winners, but now you’ve got 1,300 losers,” McEvoy said.
“If this legislature is truly trying to help businesses, you don’t rob Peter to save Paul.”
Jessica Fender: 303-954-1244 or jfender@denverpost.com
The convenience-store bill (House Bill 1186)
•Allows corner stores to sell full-strength beer; they are now limited to 3.2 beer
•Allows liquor stores to stock nonperishable snacks
•Sponsors: Reps. Larry Liston, Buffie McFadyen, Ed Casso, David Balmer and John Soper
The grocery store bill (Unnumbered)
•Allows supermarkets to buy a liquor license from a liquor store within a 1,000-foot radius, subject to approval by local authorities.
•Requires grocers to pay the state and local regulators a $3,000 fee each on top of the amount they negotiate with liquor stores.
•Bars stores like Target and Wal-mart from buying licenses
•Sponsors: Reps. Buffie McFadyen, Ed Casso, Jack Pommer, David Balmer and Sen. Suzanne Williams
