Article Contributed on: 1/22/2008 9:10:05 AM
Since I work for a California company, I spend a fair amount of time in The Golden State and every time I'm there, I come back with a suitcase full of cheap wine and booze from Trader Joe's. This last trip I managed to fit three bottles of wine, a bottle of scotch, some candy, some hot chocolate and a jar of honey into a carry-on sized suitcase along with all of my clothes. Amazingly, everything arrived intact!
If you've never been to a Trader Joe's, chances are you're not familiar with Two Buck Chuck, formally known as Charles Shaw. As it's nickname implies this wine costs $2/bottle.
Now, it's not the best wine in the world (although it has won a number of awards), but you can't beat it for $2. And it makes a perfectly good house wine in my opinion.
Unfortunately, because of our antiquated liquor laws, we can't buy Two Buck Chuck in Colorado. Ask anyone who has ever lived in California or any other state where there is a Trader Joe's and they're likely to tell you this store is one of the things they miss most. The closest Trader Joe's to Denver is in Santa Fe, NM and Two Buck Chuck costs $3 there - go figure.
Not only can we not buy our booze in the grocery store (which rumor has it is the reason TJs won't come to Denver), but we can't even buy it on Sundays.
There have been some attempts to change the law to allow liquor stores to be open on Sundays, but the liquor stores themselves lobbied against them, saying that they would never get a day off. No one's forcing them to be open on Sunday. I think the money they'd bring in from game-day beer sales could easily pay for someone to work that day.
Since the liquor store owners are lazy and don't want to be open on Sundays, I propose another solution. Let's allow grocery stores to sell wine and beer. Sure, some liquor stores will go out of business, but hey, they could have chosen to stay open on Sundays. Then we might even see a Trader Joe's in Denver.
I've heard the argument that if we allow grocery stores to sell beer, then all of the micro and craft breweries will suffer a loss in sales because the chain stores will only buy from the big guys.
I don't buy it. But, if grocery stores only sold cheap crappy beer, then I see a terrific market for local liquor stores to sell the harder to find stuff. I imagine the same could happen with wine.
I'd be ok with prohibiting the grocery stores from selling hard alcohol. Although, then I'd still have to to go California to get my Trader Joe's Scotch, but that's a sacrifice I can live with.