Colorado lawmakers have succeeded in putting a cork in part of the state’s liquor laws after a skeptical Gov. Jared Polis signed a new measure blocking the state from issuing a certain type of license to grocery and drugstores.
Senate Bill 33, which passed the legislature with sizable bipartisan support, blocks the state from issuing any more liquor licenses to drugstores, which typically means grocery stores that also have pharmacies. Supporters had argued that the law would help support independent liquor stores as grocery stores — which can now sell wine and beer — move increasingly into alcohol sales.
The new law, signed by Polis on Thursday, means more grocery stores can’t expand into selling hard liquor.
“Independent liquor stores are important small businesses in communities across the state, especially in small towns, and they are the lifeline for Colorado’s craft breweries and distilleries,” Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, said in a statement Friday. “Without this law, we’d see more local job layoffs and more closures of these stories across the state because they’d be turfed out by big box stores.”
The bill was also backed by Sen. Judy Amabile and Reps. Naquetta Ricks and Ron Weinberg.
Colorado has 36 active drugstore liquor licenses, according to a nonpartisan legislative analysis. The law is expected to prevent about two dozen more licenses from being issued in the next two years.
The law does not impact grocery or drugstores that already have those licenses; they’ll still be able to renew them. Lawmakers had pursued similar limitations in previous years, and Roberts said SB-33 was a compromise compared to those attempts, which would’ve removed existing licenses.
In signing the bill, Polis bucked retail and grocery store industry groups that had asked him to veto it. In a signing statement, Polis wrote that he was concerned the bill would move the state’s “liquor laws backward, not forward.”
But the legislative support for the bill was so overwhelming, he continued, that it forced his hand away from the veto pen. Eighty-four of the legislature’s 100 lawmakers voted in support of the bill.
Opponents criticized the bills’ passage into law and floated the possibility of a ballot measure to reverse the new policy, which goes into effect immediately.
“On behalf of hundreds of businesses and thousands of employees in Colorado, we are disappointed that the governor has signed this protectionist measure into law when the current system balances consumer choice, business sustainability, and safety,” Ray Rivera, the executive director of Coloradans for Consumer Choice, said in a statement. “Senate Bill 33 disrupts this balance, contradicts the will of voters, and does nothing to improve public safety.”
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