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Grocers Make Another Push To Sell Liquor

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Feb 8, 2010 6:27 pm US/Mountain

Grocers Make Another Push To Sell Liquor

Reporting
Shaun Boyd
DENVER (CBS4) ― Grocers have come up with a bill that would allow them to sell full-strength liquor in Colorado. The bill would allow a grocery store to buy a liquor store's license if the liquor store is within 1,000 feet of the supermarket.

Liquors store wouldn't have to sell.

Safeway, which is pushing the bill, calls it a fair market approach that gives customers convenience. Critics say there's nothing fair about it and that if one store in a neighborhood sells, they're all in danger.

Morgan's Liquors sits just a couple hundred feet from the Safeway at Evans and Downing and is in a pretty good position to benefit from the proposed law.

"We would go in and make them an offer to buy them out lock, stock and barrel," Safeway spokesperson Diane Mulligan said.

Owner Jim Archibald says thanks, but no thanks.

"I'd be letting the industry down if I sold out," Archibald said.

Archibald said while stores like his might make money selling their license, every other liquor store in the area would be in danger of closing.

Mulligan with Safeway doesn't agree.

"There are only a handful of states in the country that still have these prohibitionist laws on the books," Mulligan said. "If you look to north of us or you look to the south of us, you can buy liquor in grocery stores and the liquor stores there are doing just fine."

Mulligan said grocers will never be able to compete with the selection at liquor stores. Archibald agrees but wonders how long will those stores will last.

"I feel like I have an obligation to keep it out of their hands for the sake of my employees, for the sake of the neighborhood, for the sake of the distributors and people I work with and do business with."

Safeway counters that if it buys a liquor license it will also need to hire additional employees. But Morgan's says it's likely Safeway won't hire all 13 people employed there.

A House committee takes up the bill later this month.

(© MMX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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