Senate Bill 16-197<\/a>, which struck a provision prohibiting certain retail stores from selling beer and similar fermented beverages containing more than 3.2 percent alcohol by weight or 4 percent alcohol by volume.<\/p>\n\u201cThe 3.2 world is gone,\u201d Cortez City Clerk Linda Smith said.<\/p>\n
Smith, who oversees alcohol and marijuana business licensing, said Walmart, City Market and Safeway are now selling full-strength beer. Liquor stores are still the only place to find wine and spirits, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor people that are wanting convenience, I would think they would go to the grocery stores and buy it with their groceries,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
Connie Leighton, owner of Cork \u2019N\u2019 Bottle for 11 years, said she expects her business might bring in less revenue with the additional competition from grocery stores, but she\u2019s not panicking.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point, I\u2019m not worried, you know?\u201d Leighton said. \u201cI think most people are going to come in here and buy their booze. Nobody wants to walk to the back of Walmart to get their booze.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said older women who buy a 12-pack per month will probably keep shopping at the grocery store, but her regular male customers who come in after work will stay loyal. The experience at a liquor store is faster than a grocery store, she said, and people appreciate the customer service.<\/p>\n
James Wilson, owner of West Slope Liquors for 35 years, was even more casual about the transition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s really going to help them that much at all to tell you the truth,\u201d Wilson said, referring to grocery stores. \u201cMost people I\u2019ve already talked to go, \u2018Well, I\u2019m not going to stand in line and wait to get my six-pack.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Wilson and Leighton both said they hope for fairness in pricing. Wilson said he thinks it will be fair, but grocery stores have \u201cso much pull.\u201d He said he hopes the government ensures a fair shake for small businesses.<\/p>\n
Leighton said she hopes liquor stores will get the same deals from distributors that grocery stores get now that both are selling full-strength beer.<\/p>\n
Suzanne Karrer, a communications manager for the Colorado Department of Revenue, stated in an email to The Journal that wholesalers can charge retailers whatever they want, as long as it\u2019s not below cost. Retailers and wholesalers are prohibited from selling below their invoiced cost, she stated.<\/p>\n
sdolan@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Full-strength beer now available statewide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-63571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63571","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=63571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63571"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=63571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}