DENVER —Voters will decide next month whether convenience stores and other food retailers will be allowed to sell wine.
Backers of an initiative submitted 192,017 signatures in support of expanding wine sales —well over the required 124,632 —to the Secretary of State. If approved at the polls, the initiative would become law, allowing stores already licensed to sell beer to add wine to their shelves. Of the signatures collected, a random sampling of 5,000 names showed an estimated 142,697 were valid.
A second initiative allowing third-party delivery of wine also was approved for the ballot when a random sampling of the 185,790 signatures submitted showed an estimated 139,312 were valid.
Currently, convenience stores and grocers can sell full-strength beer, a right for which they had to fight long and hard to get. The Colorado Legislature finally gave approval in 2018 which upended a 73-year-old law limiting the alcohol content to 3.2 percent.
Big money is being poured into the new campaign. More than $11 million has been raised to date. The largest contribution came from Wine in Grocery Stores, which brought in $3.97 million, with $1.2 million already spent on signature gathering. DoorDash kicked in $3.3 million. The measure also has the backing of 7-Eleven, Safeway, Albertsons, Target, and Instacart.
The liquor store industry is fighting those two initiatives and a third that would allow major chain liquor outfits to expand dramatically. Under the title Keeping Colorado Local, the group has raised $225,457 in cash and non-monetary contributions from the Colorado Licensed Beverage Association and several liquor store owners.
Keeping Colorado Local claims it represents hundreds of liquor store owners who believe "this will put everybody out of business."
"Every small liquor store depends on wine sales to keep their lights on," said Loren Touch of Gunbarrel Liquors in Gunbarrel, CO. "There's got to be a limit somewhere where the average person with the average intelligence and average means can build a life for themselves in the small business world."
The liquor store owners say they perceive a danger in home delivery. They say they thoroughly train their people to recognize minors and others who are ineligible to buy their products, but doubt a third-party deliverer would go to that extent.
The c-store industry contends it is all about convenience —allowing people to grab their wine with their cigarettes and other small purchases and quickly exit the store.
DENVER —Governor Jared Polis says he will fight to stave off a pending Environmental Protection Act provision, forcing motorists in the northern part of the state to buy a more expensive gasoline.
The mandate, designed to improve air quality, is scheduled to take effect in the summer of 2024 as the Denver metro/Northern Front Range ozone non-attainment region faces a downgrade to "severe" status.
The requirement for non-attainment zones to use reformulated gasoline was written into the Clean Air Act decades ago but Polis, reversing his stance of three years ago, now believes that it no longer is the best way to reach air quality goals. He maintains it is a one-size-fits-all prescription that would reduce the problem so minimally as to have no practical effect.
The region involved is about to reach a status of about six percent above the EPA standard of 75 parts per billion and would result, he believes, in adding more than fifty cents to a gallon of gas.
Grier Bailey, executive director of the Colorado/Wyoming Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association, called on Polis to "Take a hard look" at what it would cost Coloradans.
"This is by far one of the most expensive proposals that our regulatory partners could impose on our neighbors and families in the Front Range," Bailey said.
The Governor had to request reconsideration from the EPA to delay the implementation.
Bailey also said upgrading refineries to produce the new RFG blend could cost many millions of dollars and that the out-of-state refineries that provide 66 percent of the gasoline Colorado uses might decide it isn't worth the investment and leave the market.
The one refinery Colorado has, Suncor, produces 33 percent of the gasoline used here, but he said it is unlikely the company would want to produce two different blends so the mandate might also affect other areas of Colorado whose air status is not classified as severe.
COLORADO SPRINGS —Despite fierce neighborhood objection, the City Council gave approval to the erection of a Kum & Go service station in the southern part of the city.
The Planning Commission first supported the project, but later sided with the opposition.
However, the Council determined because the area already was zoned for a gasoline station there was no legal basis to reject it.
Neighbors, some of whose bedrooms back up to the site, said they feared more traffic, noise and pollution. Kum & Go has promised to erect a barrier and has pointed out that the size will be smaller than its usual buildings.
LONGMONT —The City Council wants to make an area more pedestrian-friendly by barring the construction of new gasoline stations, carwashes, and drive-thru businesses from opening on Main St.
Electric vehicle-charging stations would be allowed.
While the Council gave its initial support at a study session the proposal would have to be presented for a first and second reading.
The proposal would not affect existing businesses.
"This is part of the suite of amendments that are aimed at creating a more mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly corridor," said Erin Fosdick, Longmont principal planner. "The intent is not to eliminate the existing auto-oriented uses that are there today, but to potentially provide some space for other, maybe non-auto-oriented uses in the future."
AURORA —Police have arrested a man who allegedly sprayed gasoline on a stranger at a gasoline station because he was speaking Spanish.
Riny Kosam, 28, is being held in the Arapahoe County Jail on hate crime charges.
The victim, who did not want to be named, said he made a late-night stop with a friend at the Rocket Phillips 66 to get fuel after having his hair cut. He asked his friend to go inside to pay.
The clerk on duty said the assailant "comes in angry, bought beer, then yelled at the Hispanic who was speaking Spanish on the phone. He said 'Your kind is not wanted here' and he shoved the man."
After that the suspect went outside where he reportedly grabbed the nozzle from the other Latino customer and sprayed him with gasoline.
When his search for a lighter to set the victim on fire proved futile, the witness said he grabbed a rock and threw it through the back window of the man's car, grabbed his keys and drove off.
Chris Martinez, who was arriving for work at the time, said he's now afraid for his Spanish-speaking customers and said "For them to feel that someone could pour gas on them just for speaking Spanish is very, very frightening."
The man targeted is a Columbian who said he had only been in this country for four months.
MONTROSE —A brazen theft occurred at Blair's Truck Stop when three trucks pulled in and stole nearly 500 gallons of fuel.
During the episode one of the three thieves damaged a fuel pump in an effort to pump diesel into auxiliary fuel tanks placed in the beds of their pickups.
LAKEWOOD —Car washes are getting to be dangerous places in Colorado.
Four masked men pulled up to a man washing his vehicle and shot him as he tried to drive away.
Two men and two juveniles were later arrested. They also are suspected of trying to rob people at a bus stop.
DENVER —The street price of gasoline has gone way down since the Labor Day weekend, when the price topped out at $4.90 per gallon.
The average price in mid-September was $3.72, having dropped eight cents in a week.
The national average at the time was $3.78 for a gallon of unleaded gasoline.
LITTLETON —Lube and Latte, whose service was a revolutionary idea a few years ago, is growing.
A second location opened here recently. It contains two bays.
Late last year, the company opened its second Automotive Evolution storefront in Denver, a huge shop that promised to serve customers more quickly and efficiently.
Lube and Latte was established in 2007 in Lakewood and fifteen years later has four shops.
Originally published in the October 2022 issue of the O&A Marketing News.
© KAL Publications Inc. 2022