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January 24, 2008 06:32 PM UTC
14 Comments
It’s about time.
Now if we could get rid of the rest of the insane blue laws, like not being able to buy a car on Sunday.
Are there any other blue laws besides liquor and cars? I haven’t heard of any.
Its the car one that always comes to mind.
I think there used to be a prohibition on Barber shops being open on Mondays, but I think that one may have gone away as well.
Somewhere I read that the barbers’ union was responsible for that; it was a union work rule. I think the days of the barbers’ union are probably long past, though.
you notice the only non-booze items for sale are mixers. The trade-off between liquor stores and and grocery stores was that liquor stores could not sell anything except alcoholic beverages and mixers for drinks and grocery stores could not sell alcoholic beverages containing more then 3.2%.
If there is to be a change allowing grocery stores to carry full beer and wine, then liquor stores need to be allowed to sell more then mixers.
Back when much of this started, grocery stores closed by 9pm and liquor stores stayed open until 11pm (IIRC). 7-11 changed that scenerio with grocery stores working out new labor agreements staying open until midnight, then 24 hour. The state and local restrictions of alcoholic beverage sales are still in place, heaven knows selling booze at 3am is very bad.
It means there is one day a week I can go just to look without being preyed upon by the sales people.
Not the end of the world if it changes, but I would not be an advocate of scrapping it even though I am an atheist.
And I don’t mind the liquor blue law so much either. I think it is rather nice that there is one day a week when the retail people are assured of having a day off.
to remove restraint of trade. Another item where the GOP did not live up to their philosophy.
We of the GOP stripe haven’t been living up to our “philosophy” for a long time. I for one am thrilled about this. I feel like I should go spend some money at King Soopers just to thank them for supporting this bill. I will be super happy when the grocery stores are allowed to sell booze.
This law, to me, seemed absurd on its face after I moved here in 2001 and will hopefully go the way of the dodo if the legislature can follow through and Ritter signs it.
Whew ! Maybe we’ll call them Shiraz Sundays or Wine-drenched Weekends. Who knows.
Certainly a good idea all around.
I for one am thrilled that I will be able to pick up a bottle of Wild Irish Rose on my way to church.
More seriously, the blue law is rather silly and probably should go. I’m not so sure about the grocery store idea, though. If they are going to allow the grocery stores to sell real beer and wine, they should probably allow the liquor stores to establish chains. That’s the restriction now, right? That any business can only posess a license to sell liquor at one location. It’s my understanding that this restriction is what has led to the liquor “superstores” like Applejack and Argonaut. Since they can’t add locations, they can only expand their single store if they want to grow the business.
If Safeway and King Soopers (and Target and Wal-Mart…) want to sell beer and wine as chains, it only makes sense to allow the liquor stores to form chains as well, if they are serious about establishing a “level playing field”.
Do the grocery chains want to allow beer and wine to be sold at each location without obtaining a liquor license every time? I live on Capitol Hill, and we have enough alcohol flowing around without every 7-11 and other convenience store selling stronger booze.
In fact grocery stores can sell booze, they just get a singe liscence per chain for the whole state.
This is one of the hold ups they have to allow the liquor stores to form chains to level the playing field.
Make no mistake this will put a lot of family businesses out of business. Nearly every grocery store has a liquor stor in the same shopping strip. I’m not sure how I feel about this: pro consumer or pro small business, but I am not ignorant that it will hurt a lot of family businesses at the same time it brings down costs for consumers. This ultimately is the faustian bargain of walmart.
From having lived a short while in California where liquor store chains and grocery stores were the main outlets I got the impression that the diversity of alcohol available was lower while prices for most things were not any lower than you’d find at the various alcohol superstores in Colorado. So it might not actually be an improvement for the consumer to have it being sold in grocery stores.
Last year, Senator Jennifer Viega was one of the Senate sponsors on HB-1138, which did real harm to the homebuilding industry. Bad Jennifer, Bad.
Now she is one of the sponsors of this great bill which introduces common sense into our liquor laws and promotes free enterprise. Good Jennifer, Good.
I’m so confused…