{"id":105169,"date":"2016-05-11T01:35:14","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T07:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/alcohol-sales-bill-sent-to-skeptical-governor\/"},"modified":"2016-05-11T01:35:14","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T07:35:14","slug":"alcohol-sales-bill-sent-to-skeptical-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/alcohol-sales-bill-sent-to-skeptical-governor\/","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol-sales bill sent to skeptical governor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Jordan
Jordan Bodwell stacks cases of Ska beer at the company\u2019s warehouse off La Posta Road. A bill approved by the Legislature would allow the sale of full-strength beer, wine and liquor in grocery stores.<\/span>Shaun Stanley\/Durango Herald file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 The Legislature on Wednesday backed the sale of full-strength beer, wine and liquor in grocery stores, in what could be historic action.<\/p>\n

The decades-long \u201cbeer battle\u201d has cast a shadow over the Legislature with little progress \u2013 until now, with what is being described as a \u201cgrand bargain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill heads to Gov. John Hickenlooper for his signature, but he has expressed concerns with changing the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure we need to try and change our regulatory framework to help big business at the expense of little business,\u201d Hickenlooper said on April 21, before details of the compromise were revealed. \u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say that I would be inclined to protect the status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also unclear how a proposed ballot initiative would play out in tandem with the legislation. Large grocers who are pushing the initiative issued a blistering statement moments after the bill was sent to the governor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe session has ended and the Legislature has failed Coloradans yet again,\u201d read the statement from Your Choice Colorado Campaign Manager Georgie Aguirre-Sacasa. \u201cIt\u2019s a ruse and voters won\u2019t fall for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Large grocers are hoping to ask voters this November to support allowing just full-strength beer and wine sales in all grocery stores.<\/p>\n

Under the compromise bill, full-strength alcohol sales would be phased in over 20 years, with grocery stores allowed to gradually purchase 20 licenses through 2037. After that, stores would be allowed to obtain unlimited licenses.<\/p>\n

Also important to the compromise is a buffer zone provision, in which the bill draws a radius of 1,500 feet around existing liquor stores and requires grocery stores to buy out liquor stores to obtain licenses within that zone.<\/p>\n

Once an issue that barely advanced out of committee, the House approved the legislation Wednesday 57-7 and the Senate approved it Monday 31-4.<\/p>\n

All three of Southwest Colorado\u2019s lawmakers supported the effort, including Republican Reps. Don Coram of Montrose and J. Paul Brown of Ignacio, and Sen. Ellen Roberts of Durango.<\/p>\n

What led to support is that smaller liquor stores, such as the Korean Liquor Retailers Association and the Ethiopian-Eritrean Liquor Association, back the bill, as do several craft brewers, the Distilled Spirits Council and the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of Colorado.<\/p>\n

But several grocers are holding out, including King Soopers, Safeway and Albertsons. And Applejack Wine and Spirits, a larger liquor store in Wheat Ridge, remains concerned.<\/p>\n

For the past few days, lobbyists have buzzed around the Capitol on the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake, every lobbyist in this building has been hired for this bill,\u201d said Rep. Dan Pabon, D-Denver, who opposed the legislation.<\/p>\n

Some liquor stores fear that even phasing in sales in grocery stores would lead to their demise. Meanwhile, some grocers believe they can forge ahead with the ballot effort to allow immediate sales in all grocery stores.<\/p>\n

But what most lawmakers came to realize is that the legislation might be their best shot at striking a deal on a contentious issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will give a level of comfort to the uncertainty that is out there,\u201d Coram said. \u201cIt is not perfect. \u2026 But I also believe that you should not sacrifice the good in search of the perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alcohol-sales bill sent to skeptical governorLawmakers offer widespread support to sales in supermarkets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":105170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[924,94,582,13,500],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-105169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-alcohol","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-craft-beer","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-retail"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105169"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=105169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}