Face The State Staff Report
Grocery stores and convenience stores are gearing up to lobby for the elimination of 3.2 beer in Colorado and using the free market to bolster their case.
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Currently, Colorado law prohibits the state’s grocery and convenience stores from selling full strength beer, and instead allows them to sell 3.2 percent alcohol beer. The sale of 3.2 beer was not an issue until earlier this year when the General Assembly legalized Sunday liquor sales. Before the bill went into effect on July 1, liquor sales were not allowed on Sundays, and consumers could only buy 3.2 beer at grocery and convenience stores. The history of 3.2 beer dates back to prohibition. In 1933, Congress amended prohibition laws by redefining the term "intoxicating liquors" to mean any beverage with an alcohol content higher than 3.2 percent by weight. Breweries immediately began delivering 3.2 beer, which is still sold in grocery stores in Minnesota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Utah.
According to Sean Duffy, a lobbyist with Denver’ Kenney Group who represents the Rocky Mountain Food Industry Association, grocery and convenience stores saw the sale of 3.2 beer fall about 66 percent once liquor stores were allowed to sell on Sundays. Consumers were effectively able to avoid 3.2 beer altogether and opt for the real deal.
“Why is the legislature artificially managing the market by requiring grocery and convenience stores to carry a product that is a vestige of prohibition?” said Duffy, who advocates letting the free market determine consumer behavior.
But Jeanne McEvoy, executive director of the Colorado Licensed Beverage Association, rejects that argument. “Alcohol has never been a free market product,” she said. “It has been regulated for 75 years, and it is controlled by every level of government.”
McEvoy also said the legislature should wait until additional data about the impact of Sunday sales is available before changing the liquor law again. “We don’t think you can come up with a true picture in a 6 month period,” she said.
To complicate the issue, liquor stores are prohibited from selling food. McEvoy questions the fairness of allowing grocery stores to encroach on liquor sales when liquor stores are not allowed to encroach on grocery store sales by selling food.
The Denver Post weighed in on the issue last April, writing, “…we believe the food-sale prohibition for liquor stores would have to go if grocery and convenience stores got the right to sell full-strength beer.”
Sen. Jennifer Veiga, D-Denver, and Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo, are sponsoring the bill. Veiga was also responsible for the legislation that allowed for liquor stores to be open on Sundays.