The Colorado Sun: Small liquor stores felt pinched by new alcohol laws. Now more changes are coming.

The impacts from liberalizing the state’s alcohol laws five years ago with the addition of major liquor store chains and beer sales in grocery stores are still being felt

Jim Archibald, left, owner of Morgans Liquor in Denver, helps a customer to pick beer from one of the coolers on Jan. 11, 2021. Archibald says the sale of full-strength beer in grocery stores has impacted his business especially since he shares a parking lot with a Safeway store. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)

Days into the new year, the owner of Morgans Liquor in Denver sat down with his financial books. The pandemic gave him a small boost in 2020 sales, but a troubling slide continued: His customer count continued to decline.

“My dollars were up, the rings (on the register) were bigger, but my customers were still trending down,” owner Jim Archibald said. He added: “I’ve been on a big downward trend ever since January 2018.”

In his mind, the trajectory is easy to explain: A pair of laws that took effect in the past five years that expanded sales of full-strength beer to grocery stores and allowed bigger liquor retailers to dominate a market once reserved for mom and pop owners.

No relief is in sight. The liberalization of alcohol regulations prompted by the pandemic — such as delivery and to-go cocktails — may become permanent if new legislation is approved, and existing laws will allow some retailers to add even more affiliated liquor stores starting in 2022.

“I had this dream of passing my store on to my kids because it’s provided our good living,” Archibald said. “I love my job, but I would never encourage anybody to get into the retail side any more because the big box stores and the chains and the grocery stores are taking it over.”

The new laws — one approved in 2016 to expand who can hold liquor licenses and another in 2018 to expand beer sales at grocery stores, gas stations and big-box retailers — represented the most significant changes to the state’s alcohol laws since Prohibition.

The shift in the retail landscape created distinct winners and losers, a reality the governor and lawmakers noted at the time of the legislation’s passage, and now sets the table for more potential changes in the 2021 legislative session.

“I don’t worry about 2022, I worry about next month and the month after that, and who’s going to open the next store. It’s just a matter of time,” Archibald said.

Read the full article here.