Author of Colorado measure on grocery beer-and-wine sales to seek more shelf space for craft products
The author of a statewide ballot initiative that would permit full-strength beer and wine sales in Colorado grocery and convenience stores said he plans to modify the measure to increase the percentage of shelf space that must be devoted to craft beer and boutique wine.
Blake Harrison said Tuesday at a hearing for Initiative 29 that he had thought his proposal, which was largely copied from a failed 2008 legislative effort, required 25 percent of alcohol shelf space go to smaller breweries and wineries.
When a Denver Business Journal reporter pointed out its wording actually called for only a minimum of 20 percent shelf space for the products, he said that he plans to grow that area as the measure moves along in the process.
That alteration of the language appears to be the only part of Harrison's proposal that is changing after weeks of discussions with affected parties such as grocers and convenience store owners, however.
Grocers are working on a separate bill or ballot initiative to let them sell all alcohol and a convenience store association is unlikely to back Harrison's plan, but Harrison said he feels his idea can win popular support in the 2010 election.
"I recognize that this bill can be improved … We're just trying to break the stalemate," the Denver deputy district attorney and Democratic legislative candidate said after the Capitol hearing. "The real answer to this may be something that neither side likes."
The measure, submitted to the Legislative Council on Nov. 17, goes next to a title-setting board in the Secretary of State's office. While Harrison can submit his initiative quickly to that board — which must approve its wording before he can collect signatures to put it on the ballot — he said he may wait for a few months to see what the Legislature does first.
Legislative committees have killed bills the past two years that would have ended the post-Prohibition ban on grocery and convenience stores selling any wine or selling beer stronger than 3.2 percent alcohol by volume. While grocers and convenience stores have backed those bills, liquor stores and craft-beer makers lobbied for their defeat, claiming their businesses would be hurt.
Harrison hopes the Legislature will come up with a solution and even included in his proposal a clause saying that any legislative action
allowing grocery stores to sell full-strength beer or wine will supersede his measure.
Grier Bailey, government affairs manager for the Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, said he expects several legislative proposals will seek incremental changes in the law this year.
Association officials met with Harrison in recent weeks to see if they could back his plan but generally are not supportive of it, Bailey said. They believe a provision in the initiative limiting full-strength beer and wine sales to just 5 percent of a store's shelf space is too restrictive and would help large grocers far more than smaller local proprietors, he said.
"I think the language is, from a small-business perspective, not well thought-out," Bailey said.