Editor’s note: Thanks to a change in state law in 2008, Coloradans can drop by their favorite liquor store on Sundays to grab a six-pack before a Broncos game. But you still can’t walk into a grocery store or convenience store and buy wine or spirits, much less full-strength suds. Those stores are only allowed to stock 3.2 beer, which has a lower alcohol content. Each year it seems a few bills bubble up at the statehouse that aim to tinker with Colorado’s crazy patchwork of liquor laws. This year, the battle is over whether to allow convenience and grocery stores to sell full-strength beer. We asked a few experts if these new bills would be good for consumers, or if there’s some other way to make Colorado liquor laws more fair, to even the playing field? Here’s what they had to say.
Legislators say they want to make new liquor laws that are “more fair” in order to benefit Colorado citizens, small businesses and consumers. Unfortunately, none of those entities is likely to benefit.
Instead, the convenience store industry and other corporate interests are the ones that will benefit. Collectively, those interests represent $1.35 trillion a year. They have plenty of cash to hire powerful lobbyists and attorneys and to publish misleading rhetoric, change the laws, and muscle their way into our state.
As reported by the national trade organization, the National Association for Convenience and Petroleum Retailing: “Convenience stores account for more than $624 billion in sales, more than 80 percent of all the fuel sold the U.S.” These are big gas stations attached to a small “convenience” store. Not surprisingly, one major liquor lobbyist is the Colorado-Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association.
In addition, the remainder of the $1.35 trillion, and the out-of-state corporations that would benefit from changes in our Colorado liquor laws, and where our money would be sent, are as follows: Supervalu (owns Albertson’s), Minnesota, $40 billion; Safeway, California, $41 billion; Target, Minnesota, $67 billion; Costco, Washington, $78 billion; Kroger, Ohio, $82 billion; and Wal-mart, Arkansas, $422 billion.
If one point is to be made here, it is this: Colorado’s current system provides our citizens with the most competitive pricing, and the largest selection of products available.
If we spread our “best selling” products out between liquor stores, the grocery outlets and convenience stores, we will lose our great selection. To make additional profit to compensate for this additional “thinning” of the best sellers, prices will go up with everyone in the market. Go to another “chain state,” which we would become; prices are higher everywhere and selection much less.
Smaller stores will go out of business, and the largest of stores will suffer when sales are cut. We will have more unemployment, foreclosures and bankruptcies. Colorado microbreweries, distillers and wineries will struggle to find shelf space and many will fail.
Coloradans won’t have a “fairer” environment. The gas stations and mega-corporations will take yet another portion of our state economy, to our detriment.
Alan Jenks represents Bacchus Wine & Spirits in Highlands Ranch.
