Grocery stores selling liquor
I personally don’t care if Colorado laws are changed to allow grocery stores to sell hard liquor or wine as is being proposed. I don’t see a difference between Groceries ( which currently sell alcohol products such as what we’ve come to know as “3.2 beer” and cigerettes ) selling wine or even hard liquor as those products can’t be sold to minors either and the Grocery stores have chosen to handle these as they see fit and in compliance with the law.
I did however find Wednesday’s speakout column by Ellen Robinson, co owner of Denver’s Argonaut liquors, to be fraught with self interest, while posturing as a concerned corporate citizen and to be nothing more than a transparent and silly plea for protection against market competition.
Most fear mongering is a ploy to conceal predictable hidden agendas, in this case protecting a closed market for liquor stores which hold an exclusive right to sell certain lawful products.
Robinson quoted (and spoke for) all the usual fear groups: Parents, church groups, Police chiefs, other law enforcement, local governments, small businesses and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (which opposes everything) et. all, as reason for all of us to continue living in the Nanny State which has become of Colorado.
I think anyone could figure out what Robinson’s real concern is, a common sentiment, the fear for the well being of one’s own wallet.
I’d have more respect for Robinson if she just came out and said her industry doesn’t want the competition and leave irrelevant issues such as the welfare of kids, mom, the flag and apple pie out of it.
And then I’d still say no. No one is entitled to a corner on any market. Sorry Ellen, nice try.
This letter has not been edited.
No one is entitled to a corner on any market.
It's more than one person but .... Should hardware stores be allowed to sell shots of whiskey by the glass?
Posted by Stan Broyles on September 27, 2007 03:34 PMIf they get a liquor license; sure.
Posted by Mike on September 27, 2007 07:53 PMHaving spent 6 months in Florida the past two years, all the grocery stores sell alcohol six days a week. You pick up the wine next to the cheese in most stores, LOL.
What bothers me more than who sells what, is how much we pay for everything. No one talks about inflation, but every other week the prices go up again.
$5.00 for canning jar lids ???
$2.49 a pound for pumpkins???
$1.25 a can for chicken noodle soup?
$7.50 a bag for pistachio nuts???
There is some major CORPORATE greed going on folks, and the price of gas is no longer an excuse. That was factored in a year ago, and the prices of groceries continues to rise. BULL!
Posted by janis houston on September 27, 2007 09:34 PMI live in Illinois (soon to move to Colorado), and we've sold beer, wine, and liquor in grocery stores and convenience stores for years. If anyone is complaining, I haven't heard about it. I shopped at King Soopers the other day and had to ask them where the wine was--(at the liquor store I was told). I couldn't believe I had to go to the liquor store to buy a cheap wine of which I only needed 1/4 cup for a recipe. Oh well. My dinner guests ended up drinking the rest of the bottle so I guess it turned out okay.
Selling beer, wine, and liquor in grocery stores is really no big deal. The stores have to be licensed and they have to ask for ID's when selling the alcohol. Any under-age cashiers have to get an adult cashier to ring up alcohol and cigarette sales. Not all the stores have chosen to sell hard liquor, but just sell beer and wine. For the really good stuff, I still go to the liquor store or a specialty wine shop.
I'm rambling, but no doubt there will be a big stink before the law is passed (if it is passed), but after it passes, things will calm down.
Posted by Linda on September 27, 2007 09:36 PM
janis,
Agreed. Allowing grocery stores to sell alcohol sounds much saner to me than selling beer and gasoline at the same time.
All prices are up, and will stay that way because the contracts for moving goods are usually signed for two years. Since the big price jump in fuel that has changed to contracts signed with fuel surcharges outlined or yearly renewal provisions. For the past 3 years there have been gas price jumps and the diesel price jumps have been higher with little of the price relief gas sales have seen. Check out the signs on any truck stop to see what I mean. The average payment to the driver of a truck was two dollars a mile. Now it is almost five in many cases. That only applies only if the driver is the owner. If not he is paid by the mile or by the trip. Add that increase to every truckload or 40K pounds of food and you can see about a nickel to a quarter more for everything.
The contracts mean that almost verything will have a higher price for at least but perhaps I can help you on a few of these as I am such a penny pincher the Lincoln Trust makes obscene calls to my cell.
Canning jar lids..wait for a sale at the end of the canning season at any major grocery store when they are half price or less. Thrift stores often have "goodie bags" of canning jars, rings and lids for little more than a dollar for six or seven dozen lids with bands. Jars are a quarter or fifty cents each.
2.49 a pound for pumpkins..
Wait until the end of the Halloween season. The ones they are selling aren't going to be gone. Farmer's Markets have good deals also. Next year you can invest in a package of seeds and give it a square yard of space with a long runner space for the plants and sell or give away the extras. They even have container size pumpkin plants
1.25 a can for chicken noodle soup..
Very soon the Colorado Share will have their warehouse sale. Chicken noodle soup is almost always sold for about .50 a can. They have other great deals. Check out their web site under Catholic Archdiocese of Colorado. Last sale they sold those pre-packed snack pretzels for .10 a box. Boulder Potato Chips were also a dime a bag. Each pretzel box holds 8 packages that sell in stores for about .59 or .69 each. Many other things like Mayo for a dollar or less. They will have the sale items list available in person or by fax just before the sale. Check out their monthly packages too. Not a charity just the power of high volume purchasing.
Pistacios,
Wal-Mart is good for lower prices. I prefer Jerry's Nut House but the cost might be just as high. I believe the quality is equally higher.
Generic suggestion: Buy seasonal things at the end of the season. Last Christmas I bought the holiday mugs I will fill with home made dried apple pie filling, made from my own apple tree apples. Original price: 3.75.. End of Season price .38. Thrift stores are a great source for things like canning jars, lids, special containers and special appliances. It took me three years but I finally was able to buy a 48(?) blade meat tenderizer for 1.49. Store price at restaurant supply store, with my professional discount, 38 dollars.
Some foods, like nuts, can be frozen at the end of the baking/holiday season and saved for the next year. I did that with pecans one year when they were marked down to 2.00 a pound at Sam's Club.
Keep track of the sales at various stores and the location of the mark down racks. Often a product will end up there with nothing more wrong with it than a bent box corner or an oversupply of a non-popular item. Six years ago I had to start my pantry, my kitchen and my spice cupboards from nothing more than two boxes of staples I'd bought over the previous months and a saucepan and skillet from a garage sale. I am a monster pastry and meat cook so I now have, even though I have to work from a chair, a double cabinet pantry that would feed my family for three to six months without any difficulty. A freezer full of food planned and labeled for what they are and when they were put in and.....There are three fifty pound containers of flour in the pantry (used to be the dining room) labeled A B and C for All purpose, Bread and Cake flour. Until last November, my husband had not had to eat store bread since we moved to our home in 2002. I got up at 2 AM to make him a breakfast that included, once a week, a nearly fat free chicken fried steak and eggs with cream gravy with home made biscuits. We always had a snack available and the meal plans were posted on the fridge with stars for the ones that might change with the specials on Wednesday's food ads. Enough bragging.
Plan ahead, make the rest of the family co-operate and buy a bread machine. Hot bread fills noses, mouths,and bellies. That means it changes complaints and arguments into silence. And buy a bottle of wine at the store of your choice.
Posted by momma y on September 27, 2007 11:12 PMI find two of Colorado's liquor laws absurd: The law or regulation that prevents grocery stores or other stores from selling beer and wine, and the law that says liquor stores must be closed on Sunday.
Both are enamored of the liquor store industry. The first because they don't want competition. The second because they're afraid that if the competitors are open on Sunday, they'll have to be open on Sunday also, and they also don't want the added labor costs. So they get government to close all liquor stores, but not bars, on Sunday. Then the next time government raises liquor taxes, or changes sotre regulations, they complain of government interference.
I work, part time, in a store that has a wine shop and I support Colorado's "blue laws".
Not because of the business it brings more business into our store. I support it because there are dozens of "mom and pop" stores out there that would be out of business if the blue laws were eliminated.
It's really sad how everyone is so willing to just stick it to the small businessman who is trying to make it in the world if it means they can have a little more convenience in their lives. Who cares if someone will lose their business if I can buy my Jack Daniels at the same I buy my Cheerios. Right?
Well, I support the small business people of Colorado, including the liquor store owners. WalMart, Target, King Soopers and Safeway make plenty of money without selling liquor.
(Also, just a sidenote here..but has anyone ever considered that having liqour in the same place where we buy food isn't the most positive message to send to our kids?)
It's all the people moving here that are complaining that they can't get the things here that they had in the states they're coming from, Illinois and Florida, et al.
Well, this isn't Florida or Illinois. This is Colorado. If being able to buy liquor at the grocery store is so high on your list of priorities than maybe you reconsider whether this is the right place for you.
Keep the laws the way they are. Protect the small business owners. Don't change Colorado to be like "every other state". Let's stay different.
Posted by Thomas on September 28, 2007 07:34 AMPeterpi,
Actually the laws don't prevent grocery stores from selling alcohol.
The laws only allow one liquor license per business name. Meaning, that only one King Soopers would be able to sell liquor. The rest wouldn't unless they changed their names.
The Target in Glendale sells alcohol but it's the only one in the state that does.
As for being closed on Sunday, yes, most liqour store owners do support that. Same with the car dealers. It provides them with a mandated day off - which cuts costs yet ensures that no one is exempt - so the playing field is equal. The government also tells them what hours they can be open on the other days.
Posted by Thomas on September 28, 2007 07:53 AM"Who cares if someone will lose their business if I can buy my Jack Daniels at the same I buy my Cheerios. Right?"
Right. It's called a free market. More freedom and less protectionism is better for consumers.
Posted by Mike on September 28, 2007 08:50 AM"...if I can buy my Jack Daniels at the same I buy my Cheerios..."
That's just like I make my breakfast! Who needs cow juice when you can soak the cheerios in Jack....
Posted by on September 28, 2007 09:39 AMWHAT PART OF IT PUTS PEOPLE OUT OF WORK DON'T YOU NUT CASES GET? Grocery stores don't add people when they add products!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by VB on September 28, 2007 09:52 AMThere you go mommy y, making sense again. The last time you posted about your BBQ, I wound up roaming around the kitchen for an hour!
On subject: If grocery stores get licenses to sell liquor, then mom and pop stores will be at a competitive disadvantage and will probably disappear. The big stores might have to add an extra employee, but the little guys will lose their income, their investments and their future will be in jeopardy.
Posted by Stan Broyles on September 28, 2007 10:10 AMvb how will it put anyone out of work? having the government mandate a day off for a business is just bs.. if a business wants a day off they just have to close that day.
mom and pop stores will go out of business because they are closed for one day? please get real. if that was the case the please explain how chick fil a stays in businees in the fast food industry and they are closed on sundays?
"On subject: If grocery stores get licenses to sell liquor, then mom and pop stores will be at a competitive disadvantage and will probably disappear. The big stores might have to add an extra employee, but the little guys will lose their income, their investments and their future will be in jeopardy."
And?
We restrict who can sell a product, and on what days, so some people don't go out of business?
That's idiotic.
And why does it only apply to liquor; and not all products?
Let's prevent grocery stores from selling cigarrettes, and just have cigarrette stores.
Let's prevent grocery stores from selling ice cream, so the corner mom and pop ice cream stand doesn't go out of business.
Let's prevent grocery stores from selling hot dogs. so the poor guy with the hot dog cart standing on the corner doesn't go out of business.
Posted by Mike on September 28, 2007 10:19 AMI didn't say that grocery stores shouldn't sell liquor. I only stated that this would probably put the little guys out of business. It's like telling someone you want them to play a game and then changing the rules in the middle of it. Kinda like the smoking ban in bars. Tough luck, right!?
Posted by Stan Broyles on September 28, 2007 10:44 AMMaybe it'll put some Mom n' Pop liquor stores out of business, but it won't get all of 'em.
Arizona is one state that allows grocery chains to stock booze, and there certainly are still M&P stores as well.
The smaller stores will have to change their business plan, perhaps, and focus on a diverse inventory instead of mass quantities of Bud Light.
I do feel badly for the M&P stores - it's always unsettling to have to deal with change like this that will probably affect them negatively.
But personally, I'll be happy to have the choice to buy booze with my Cheerios.
Posted by Tim on September 28, 2007 10:48 AMHere's a suggestion for the "mom & pop" shops - get together & form a cooperative so you can buy in the same (or close). They'd probably have to rent a storage facility - and pay somebody to either deliver to the stores or have the stores pick up what they ordered. What works for individuals should work for small businesses too.
Posted by on September 28, 2007 10:52 AM"It's like telling someone you want them to play a game and then changing the rules in the middle of it. Kinda like the smoking ban in bars. Tough luck, right!?"
If the rules are fundamentally flawed then, yes, it's okay to change them. And, yes, tough luck.
The smoking ban is wrong for the same reason the blue laws are wrong. It is government sticking its nose in where it doesn't belong; limiting choice for business owners and consumers.
The smoking ban was a response to two things - OVERWHELMING citizen demand for it and a consideration of the health care issue of people impacted by second hand smoke.
Yes, Mike, we all know you're gonna poo-poo anything that you don't believe in...regardless of silly little things like truth or facts...cause that's your way.
But be assured, the smoking ban..if put up for vote...would be overwhelming approved.
The government also forces us to wear seatbelts or pay a fine. Nanny state or a government that is making small efforts to deter greater costs by influencing some of behaviors through law?
People who don't wear seatbelts are more like to be seriously injured or killed in accidents. If that person doesn't have health insurance their medical expenses are going to be passed on to everyone else through higher medical costs and insurance premiums. Dependent spouses and/or children could end up on public assistance.
It's called the BIG PICTURE, Mike. You have to look beyond your own nose. A new and novel concept for you, I'm sure.
Posted by on September 28, 2007 12:04 PMIt seems 12:04, I just hate having to call people by numbers as if they were a robot, weel, come to think of it you are a robot. Ny big picture you are really saying big brother. You are one of those people who don't have any idea what personal responsibility or what individual freedom of choice means. You seem to want the government to make all your choices for you except, the personal preferences and preconcieved ideas you want them to enact into law to serve your own selfish idea that you know how people should live their lives better than they do themselves.
It is people like you who open the door to majority tyranny over the minority and hypocritically whine and cry when the tables are turned on you and you freedom of choice is taken away.
Posted by Allen Campbell on September 28, 2007 12:27 PMTim's got it right. AZ has always allowed (at least in my lifetime) grocery stores to have liquor licenses without any problems.
Before having to compete with big box stores and 24 hr grocers, this didn't have any real effect on liquor stores. One advantage for the m&p’s was they could stay open late to meet consumer demands back when grocers didn’t.
When grocers/big box evolved, some liquor stores did close but most learned to adapt to market changes. Many began to specialize by adding products not available at the large stores like Costco, Wal-Mart, etc...
These blue laws (church laws) are definitely antiquated and need revision.
I mean, it makes zero sense to allow bars to sell on Sunday, which requires transportation from the buyer, vs. being able to buy your pleasure at a store and drink in the safety of your own home. With this mindset you have to actually plan your drinking well in advance, like an addict might do.
By the way, the history of majority driven laws have a record of being the wrong thing to do, The rise of Hitler, slavery, prohibition are just a few examples. A minority of one who is right, is of more value than a majority who are wrong. You see, it is what's right that matters, not what people think is right, for people can be swayed by propaganda agendas of the rich and powerful but that cannot stand when the truth is made known and the propaganda is exposed as lies and deceptions.
Posted by Allen Campbell on September 28, 2007 12:40 PMAllen, Lord knows I don't usually agree with you but on the overstepping, no smoking law I'm with you.
12:04 may be right in saying voters would endorse such a law, but this doesn't make it right to tell private property owners (and leasee's) how to operate their business.
The problem nonsmokers had with leaving it to the owners choice was simple, it made them have to choose between their fav watering hole and one (usually less popular) that didn't allow smoking.
I still hold out hope that somewhere a fed court will determine these additional blue laws are unconstitutional because they interfere with private property owners rights. Justice should prevail.
Posted by KW on September 28, 2007 12:43 PM12:04,
You are correct that if an uninsured person gets into a wreck, then the public is going to contribute to his health care. Is that a justification to force everyone to wear a seatbelt? No.
Government involvement in providing services to the indigent, lazy, handicapped, mentally ill, etc...is NOT justification for MORE government involvement in the daily decisions in our lives.
By your rationale, government should dictate what food we eat, how much we exercise, if we smoke, how much we drink, what kind of dangerous activities we engage in (skydiving, alligator wrestling, etc...), and on, and on, and on.
And, OVERWHELMING citizen demand for concessions on private property is NOT a justification for those demands being met.
If there is OVERWHELMING citizen demand for Krispy Kreme donuts to be made healthier, so we can all enjoy them without concerns of what they are doing to our bodies; should Krispy Kreme be forced to change their recipe? Of course not. Don't eat them if you think they are not good for you.
Lose the entitlement mentality.
You are NOT entitled to have the local bar/restaurant provide the atmosphere you desire.
You are NOT entitled to have government protect you from competition in your business.
At the same time:
You should NOT be forced to follow the diet that others think you should follow.
You should NOT be forced to wear a seatbelt/helmet if you would rather not.
Grow up, make your own decisions, and let others make theirs.
Posted by Mike on September 28, 2007 01:23 PMStan
The change would benefit the mom and pops as they would be permitted to sell food products. How about picking up some chips, dips and a couple of bottles of wine all at once. Right now they can't sell any of this. I suspect it is more a case of the giant liquor stores, Argonaut and that one out west whose name escapes me, who fear both the competition of the big liquor stores and the neighborhood mom and pops that would finally be able to really compete by selling complementary products. That might cost some food sellers to lose out.
And the change would NOT be a change. Ever been to a Sam's Club or Costco? The majority of them have a small, separate liquor store inside or next door. Haven't seen any big closures due to that.
Change will come and require many different people to adapt. They will complain or change. Those who change will survive.
Great party. I'll find a way to get you and a few others invites for Thanksgiving weekend. No details but we seem to have a full house all three days. OK one detlai...four smoked turkeys.
Posted by momma y on September 28, 2007 01:59 PMThere you go again, mommy y. Getting my appetite all riled up.
The big liquor store out west is called Applejack's.
The idea of allowing liquor stores to sell snacks is a good one. I hope it makes it on the ballot someday soon. But the liquor laws in this state are very structured and hard to change. That's why it took so long to ban smoking in establishments that not only allowed it but made money selling the product (and nonprofit organizations such as the VFW and the Elks even used some of the proceeds to help finance their scholarship funds as well as other charitable projects).
Posted by Stan Broyles on September 28, 2007 03:59 PMif the liquor stores are put out of business expect bums to be panhandling outside of Safeway.
I hate panhandlers.
Posted by on September 28, 2007 08:04 PMThe prohibition in the law is that you may not sell food and alcoholic beverages in the same place. Any change permitting grocery store sales would nullify this or would include it anyway because it would prevent a probable challenge from liquor stores.. I'll put you our of your misery. I put my e-mail address in a post a week ago about a different subject. Message me.
Posted by momma y on September 28, 2007 10:06 PMI live in California where wine and liquor is available 7 days a week in all types of stores and a stores success depends on innovation, advertising and management! Wine is considered a food item and should be sold with other food items. The large retailers in Colorado would have to be more competitive on their prices against the grocery chains which would benefit consumers.
Posted by Dan on January 29, 2008 11:17 AM