The Longmont Rotary Club invited Luke Lahman, sales director of Breaktru Beverage Colorado to speak about how alcohol products get to the store and the impacts the sales of wine in a grocery store has had on Colorado liquor stores.
Beer remains the number one alcoholic beverage in Colorado with 41% of the sales. Wine is the lowest at nearly 30% of sales, according to Lahman.
Over the years, legislation has changed allowing more license types to grocery and convenience stores. In 2022, a business could have three retail liquor store licenses and eight licensed liquor drug store licenses in the state. These licenses cover beer and spirits but did not include wine.
In 2023, the legislature passed a law that allowed grocery stores to incorporate wine under the FMB&W license which previously included fermented malt beverages. This law also allowed grocery stores to have an unlimited number of licenses within the state.
The expansion of the license led to the largest growth in the distribution of wine to convenience stores, Lahman said.
But it also has resulted in the closure of 96 liquor stores this year. Lahman said he expects more to close in the future.
The closures are a result of people buying their wine from grocery stores instead of visiting locally-owned liquor stores. In 2037, the legislation will allow spirits into chain stores, which will increase these impacts, Lahman said.
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