Colorado Initiative to Allow Wine & Beer Sales
A Colorado initiative allowing wine and full-strength beer sales in grocery stores has cleared its first hurdle. The initiative, filed last month, was tweaked and prodded by legislative council and now awaits a hearing with the secretary of state's office.
Author Blake Harrison, a Denver deputy district attorney, wants to allow grocery and convenience stores to dedicate 5 percent of their floor space to wine and full strength beer. Both are now limited to selling only lower- alcohol beer. If nothing else, he wants to prompt the legislature to take action, he said to The Denver Post.
The new vendors would have to stock 25 percent of their beer and wine from smaller producers. The initiative would also allow liquor-store owners to operate three shops, instead of the one they're now limited to. And it would allow liquor stores to sell some food items.
Neither supermarkets nor convenience stores are backing the proposal. And the liquor stores, which have opposed expanded sales the last two times the issue arose in the legislature, are also against the initiativ