Colorado lawmakers will again try to limit hard liquor sales in grocery stores in bid to help small businesses聽
Western Slope Sen. Dylan Roberts said the effort is meant to protect independent liquor retailers struggling to compete with corporate chains
Matt Stensland/ Steamboat Pilot & Today
Editor’s note: This story has been altered to correct the location of Locals Liquors in Silverthorne.
Two years after Colorado voters approved the sale of wine in grocery stores, state lawmakers are still looking for ways to .听
Following to limit the sale of hard alcohol to just liquor retailers and establish new restrictions on how grocers sell wine and beer, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is proposing a similar 鈥� albeit slimmed down 鈥� measure.
Under , the state would stop issuing new licenses to sell high-percentage alcohol to major grocery chains. It would allow the roughly two dozen grocery stores in Colorado that currently hold a hard liquor license to continue selling.
Most of those stores are concentrated on the Front Range, though mountain resort towns are home to a few. That includes the Western Slope’s only Costco, located in Gypsum, which began selling hard liquor in 2018.
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Grocers have been able to apply for hard liquor licenses since a state bill passed in 2016 that allowed for the sale of full-strength beer while also slowly phasing in licenses for spirits.
“With the addition of wine to grocery stores, we’ve seen small liquor stores, small businesses in communities across Colorado take an enormous hit, ,” said Western Slope Democratic Sen. Dylan Roberts, a prime sponsor of the bill.
“These are small businesses, particularly in our small communities in the mountains, that are important parts of the community,” Roberts said. “They employ people, they donate to local charities, they have been institutions in the community for decades. They’re (now) under threat of closing.”
Mountain town liquor store owners in the months since grocers began carrying wine 鈥� the that was largely opposed by Western Slope voters.
Chris Carran, owner of Locals Liquors in Silverthorne and a board member for Colorado Independent Liquor Stores United, said allowing more grocery stores across the state to sell hard liquor “would be devastating.”
Independent businesses are struggling to compete against corporate chain stores able to buy products for cheaper than what small retailers can sell them for.
“They are negotiating at a national level, they’re controlling the supply chain, they’re dealing with national producers,” Carran said, meaning fewer visitors to local shops that carry small-batch products not always available in major stores.
“What that does is it loses opportunity for the small producer, the Colorado producer 鈥� to have an opportunity to sell to these consumers, because they’re not being carried by the grocery store,” Carran said. “Colorado has an incredibly vibrant beverage industry because of the independent liquor store.”
Carran sees Senate Bill 33 as a way of helping even the playing field. She’s hopeful it will find more support than last year’s broader measure that would have eliminated hard alcohol sales from grocery stores entirely alongside a host of other regulations.
But she’s also expecting pushback from the same corporations that supported the 2022 ballot measure, which included .
“Do I think it’s a slam dunk? No, because they will be throwing thousands and thousands of dollars to fight this bill,” Carran said.
Coloradans for Consumer Choice, a group calling itself a “coalition dedicated to protecting the rights of Colorado consumers, employees, and businesses,” said in a recent statement it is opposed to Senate Bill 33, which it labeled as “prohibition-era bans on spirits sales.”
“Almost every year since Colorado voters and their elected representatives voted to increase access to convenient, diverse, and safe options for purchasing alcohol, special interest groups 鈥� primarily very large and smaller liquor stores 鈥� have been looking for ways to subvert the will of the people to ensure they can maintain their bottom lines,” stated the group’s director, Ray Rivera.
“Now again, we have Senate Bill 33, which is a protectionist measure that would unfairly limit future spirit sales.” his statement continued.
Roberts said the bill respects voters’ decision and does not impact wine sales. In addition to protecting small businesses, he also sees it as a public health and safety issue.
“Liquor stores are more secure,” Roberts said. “When you’re selling a handle of Jack Daniels right next to the bread, it logically follows that there could be significantly more theft.”
Roberts added, “When you’re in recovery, as well, you can avoid going to a liquor store but you have to go to a grocery store to get food. And seeing all this alcohol 鈥� has caused a problem for people who have been in recovery.”
Along with Roberts, the bill is sponsored by Sen. Judy Amabile (D-Boulder), Rep. Naquetta Ricks (D-Aurora) and Rep. Ron Weinberg (R-Loveland). It has been assigned to the Senate Business, Labor and Technology committee and is awaiting a hearing.
