LONGMONT – The managing partners at the relatively new Wyattap Wet Goods liquor store at Longmontap Village at the Peaks would like to be able to host more tastings per year.
State statute allows liquor stores to have tastings a maximum of five hours per day, four days per week, over a total of 104 days per year.
Longmont in 2007 changed city law to permit tastings at liquor stores, but allowed only 26 tastings per year. That law later was revised, and Longmont now allows tastings to last for three hours a day, and retailers can have tastings on four days of a week — but no more than 52 tastings in a year.
Dennis Dinsmore, a managing partner at Wyattap, asked the City Council to bring Longmont in line with state law at a June council meeting.
The council will weigh the matter Tuesday.
Dinsmore said he has been in the liquor business for 46 years and the tastings at liquor stores have never been a problem.
More tastings at Wyattap would mean more marketing opportunities for the store that lost out on an expected client base for part of this year when Village at the Peaks anchor Whole Foods pushed back its opening date to December, Dinsmore said.
“We have a mixed clientele, so some want more serious wines and some want more fun wines or beer,” Dinsmore said Friday. “If we could do two a week, we would like to have ‘fun-filled Friday’ and ‘serious Saturdays’ tastings.”
Itap not the per-week Longmont limit stopping Wyattap from having two back-to-back tasting days, but rather the 52-tastings-per-year limit.
Dinsmore and the managing partners Hannah Korbitz and Joe Henry showed off the large tasting bar at the back of Wyattap on Friday.
“It cost probably $20,000 to build this so there’s a definite cost to not using it,” Dinsmore said.
Dinsmore demonstrated how tasting patrons have their driver’s license swiped at one end and then move down the bar past a large chalkboard reminding them of all the rules.
Colorado law dictates that liquor stores must purchase liquor used for tastings at full price and discard anything left over. Patrons are only allowed four one-ounce samplings of wine or beer, Korbitz said.
Henry said itap not as if the tastings are filled with obnoxious drunkards“The general public at a tasting aren’t people looking to get a fix,” Henry said. “They’re shopping and running errands and itap a cool, neat thing to try.”
