Beer here (in stores)... (Littleton, Lone Tree: sales, apartment, to buy)

[Quietude]

So I've just slowly figured out what seems to be another quirk of CO's liquor laws... grocery stores are only allowed to sell 3.2%?

Which is nowhere noted, including on case/box goods?

So unless you happen to buy one box at KS and one at a liquor store, and have the bottles in front of you, and note that one has a proud little "5.7%" flag and its supposed twin (1) lacks that mark and (2) has a faint "3.2%" over in the gummint fine print...

Maybe this should be in the newcomers sticky up there.

(Of course, CO's liquor laws appear to have been written in 1889, since they only cover "whiskey, wine and beer" - meaning, I assume, that high schoolers can buy all the vodka, malt liquor and ale they like.)

[bluescreen73]

Yeah don't buy beer at the grocery store for the next few years or so. They're slowly phasing in full-strength beer sales at grocery stores but there are severe restrictions as to how licenses are obtained.

Honestly the liquor laws here are leaps and bounds ahead of where I last lived. In Texas you can't buy hard liquor after 9pm or on Sundays. There is also the asinine wet/dry demarcation so you may have to drive several miles to get to a liquor store, and when you finally do get to the wet area there will be a dozen chain liquor stores lined up in a strip.

I remember when I moved to DFW I wanted to celebrate getting all my crap into my apartment. I had to drive 7 miles to get to the nearest liquor store. It was like an effing quest for fire. I also had to have a "club membership" to buy liquor at some restaurants. So I had a state-issued "Unicard" that was tied to my DL so the government could technically track every single time I ordered a beer at a restaurant.

[Quietude]

Yeah, I grew up in CA, which has probably the most open liquor laws in the union (pretty much any store, anywhere, can sell anything from vanilla extract to 151 - only limits are 2-6 am off-sale, and for a long time, anything over 150 proof. I think the latter was struck down a while back, saving many high school seniors the need to drive to Tahoe for EverClear.)

I guess you didn't live in any part of TX that had drive-thru liquor stores.

CT had only dedicated liquor stores and a limited number of them and floor pricing and (until just recently) no Sunday sales. That wasn't bad. They were conveniently enough located and MA was a 20-minute drive (much cheaper and fewer rules).

CO... can't seem to make up its mind. But this stupid 3.2 thing is way below the radar and has me a little pissed off - I would have just made another stop for the real stuff instead of tossing it in the cart at the grocery, had I known. I'm surprised the breweries aren't savvier to mark the goods more clearly - it would seem to be to their benefit, from a PR standpoint if probably a wash in revenue.

[Timmyy]

We used to not be able to buy alcohol on Sundays here and that was changed about 10 years ago. I also grew up in California where we had one stop shopping. Go to the grocery store for everything. The Costco in Lone Tree now has full liquor sales which has made it even more insane when it comes to the crowds.

There used to be a drive-thru liquor store on Littleton Blvd. I don't know if it is still there though.

Were you wondering why you weren't feeling anything after tossing back more than usual? Hee.

[SkyDog77]

The reasoning is that you may only hold a single liquor license. It stops big corporations from driving the Mom and pop stores out of business. King Soopers has a single location with real booze.

[Quietude]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

The reasoning is that you may only hold a single liquor license. It stops big corporations from driving the Mom and pop stores out of business. King Soopers has a single location with real booze.

Which doesn't really explain the 3.2 thing.

Mom and pop stores seem to thrive anywhere liquor is sold, regardless of the licensing limits. California is full of them, for example, and I don't recall ever hearing about one going out of business.

CT went to Sunday sales over the strenuous objections of the liquor store owners themselves, who were convinced the "extra costs of staying open" would drive half of them out of business. It didn't.

[Indigo Cardinal]

Originally Posted by Quietude

Yeah, I grew up in CA, which has probably the most open liquor laws in the union (pretty much any store, anywhere, can sell anything from vanilla extract to 151 - only limits are 2-6 am off-sale, and for a long time, anything over 150 proof. I think the latter was struck down a while back, saving many high school seniors the need to drive to Tahoe for EverClear.)

I guess you didn't live in any part of TX that had drive-thru liquor stores.

CT had only dedicated liquor stores and a limited number of them and floor pricing and (until just recently) no Sunday sales. That wasn't bad. They were conveniently enough located and MA was a 20-minute drive (much cheaper and fewer rules).

CO... can't seem to make up its mind. But this stupid 3.2 thing is way below the radar and has me a little pissed off - I would have just made another stop for the real stuff instead of tossing it in the cart at the grocery, had I known. I'm surprised the breweries aren't savvier to mark the goods more clearly - it would seem to be to their benefit, from a PR standpoint if probably a wash in revenue.

Missouri's a little ahead of CA

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_Missouri

https://www.freedominthe50states.org/alcohol

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by Quietude

Which doesn't really explain the 3.2 thing.

Mom and pop stores seem to thrive anywhere liquor is sold, regardless of the licensing limits. California is full of them, for example, and I don't recall ever hearing about one going out of business.

CT went to Sunday sales over the strenuous objections of the liquor store owners themselves, who were convinced the "extra costs of staying open" would drive half of them out of business. It didn't.

The 3.2 thing was allowed at grocery stores because it wasn’t ‘real’ beer.

Grocery stores have been pushing hard to get the single liquor license rule over turned. Local breweries and liquor stores have been fighting hard to keep it.

There are other threads in this topic.

[Timmyy]

Most of the micro brew industry doesn't want sales in grocery stores as well. Some of the reasoning for that is that they don't want to have to deal with a big corporation to get their product in the stores. Right now they only have to deal with the mom and pops to sell it.

[Quietude]

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

The 3.2 thing was allowed at grocery stores because it wasn’t ‘real’ beer.

Yeah, wasn't 3.2 considered non-alcoholic until quite recently in some places?

Grocery stores have been pushing hard to get the single liquor license rule over turned. Local breweries and liquor stores have been fighting hard to keep it.

Yeah, it's one of those debates where at least one of the parties really, really wants to shoot itself in the foot. Like the liquor stores opposing Sunday sales in CT.

My whole concern here is that it's so damned stealthy. I am not an unobservant person, I take my beer seriously and I am curious about all that's new to me here... and this eluded me for six months.