Selling wine in grocery stores has no support in town

By Susan Larson | The Daily Journal

Published Tuesday, March 20, 2007

If the Wine With Dinner bill passes at the State Legislature, it could potentially eat away thousands of dollars used by the city for tax reduction, Mayor Russell Anderson said.

“It would affect the (municipal liquor) business the city uses for tax reduction,” he said. “About $250,000 to $300,000 a year from liquor store profits are used for tax reduction.”

Local legislators and grocery stores aren’t pushing for the measure.

The Wine With Dinner bill would authorize off-sale wine licenses for supermarkets. Local legislators feel its chance of passing is slim. The bill was introduced in the House Feb. 15 and referred to the Commerce Committee last week with no action yet. It is slated to be heard in the Senate Commerce Committee today.

“It’s really been a quiet issue,” Dist. 10A Rep. Bud Nornes, R-Fergus Falls, said. “I don’t think there’s a tremendous amount of interest in it. I’m opposed to it. Number one, it’s a major competition for our municipal liquor stores, especially in the smaller communities that derive a lot of revenue from them.”

“I’m not in favor of it,” Dist. 10 Dan Skogen, DFL-Hewitt, said. “There are a lot of municipal liquor stores in some of the little communities in my district that feel it would be hard on them. Some feel it would be the first step to hard beer and wine being sold in (grocery stores).”

“It would expose a whole new generation to the stuff,” Anderson said.

“I haven’t heard from grocers in Fergus Falls who want it,” Nornes said. “At least not this session. I think it’s more of a metro issue.”

“We’re not lobbying for it at this point and time,” Kevin King, a store manager at Service Foods, said, due to the liabilities. “We could sell 3.2 beer now and we choose not to. We have employees under 18 and every time we made a liquor sale, we’d have to have an older person there. We’re not saying we’ll never change our minds, but not now.”

The bill is receiving support from the Minnesota Grocers Association.

“Minnesota consumers have long been denied the convenience of buying wine in grocery stores,” an MGA statement said. “The legislation would allow Minnesota to join the 33 other states, including Wisconsin, Iowa and South Dakota, that allow the sale of wine in grocery stores . Over the last five years, the liquor monopoly in Minnesota has blocked this consumer-friendly legislation. They have fought hard to protect the monopoly they currently enjoy at the expense of consumers.”