"I'd really like you to reconsider if we are a convenience store," Walgreens attorney Irene Bahr told Gurnee, Ill., officials this past week. "We really are not a convenience store."
Gurnee's liquor law [image-nocss] prohibits alcohol sales at pharmacies, convenience stores and gasoline stations, according to a report in the Daily Herald. Walgreens falls within that classification.
Even with a proposed change to Gurnee's 30-year-old liquor law likely to remove the "pharmacy" portion, Walgreens' effort to sell beer and wine still could be thwarted because of a newly crafted definition of convenience store, according to the newspaper report.
"Convenience store" is defined in the proposed ordinance change as a place "to quickly purchase consumables including gasoline, limited groceries, pharmaceutical items and/or other sundries for sale."
Bahr said Walgreen stores average about 12,000 square feet. She said anyone who appears younger than age 40 is asked for identification if they want to buy beer or wine, and Walgreens employees receive comprehensive training for alcohol sales. Gurnee officials said they will consider the company's request.
Since announcing this past year that it intends to bring beer and wine sales back to as many of its stores as it can, 3,200 of its 7,500 stores have made the change, according to a report in the Dallas Morning News.
In Texas, Walgreens has joined a half dozen other retailers in backing a petition drive to eliminate "dry" areas for alcohol sales in Dallas, according to a report in the newspaper.
"Being able to sell beer and wine increases the chance that a location will be profitable," Ronnie Volkening, president of the Texas Retailers Association, told the newspaper. "It will also avoid confusion for consumers."
In other areas:
Employees at Walgreens stores in Arkansas are making room on store shelves for alcohol, where allowed by law. "I think it's great [that] I come to Walgreens all the time just for random things like milk and bread when I don't want to go all the way to the grocery store, so I think as far as I'm concerned, [adding alcohol is] convenient," shopper Tripp Still told TodaysTHV.com. Arkansas alcoholic beverage Control Board Director Michael Langley said almost every Walgreens within wet counties have been granted permission to sell beer and small farm wines. In late March, Walgreen's applications to sell beer and wine at two Palo Alto, Calif., stores were placed on hold by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control after residents lodged protests, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News. The department received 23 protests of applications for the stores. The complaints from Palo Alto residents argue the stores' proximity to houses and school routes make them ill-suited for alcohol sales. Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreens' efforts in Indiana have added fuel to a long-standing tussle among alcoholic beverage sellers. "Drug-free" Marion County and the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations fear that alcohol sales at Walgreens will add to crime in some neighborhoods, according to a report in the Indianapolis Star. But opponents' more basic argument is that the Indianapolis area already has enough alcohol permits: 5,008 at bars, grocery stores, restaurants, convenience stops and more. To test the oversaturation theory, state beverage retailers filed a lawsuit, which led Indiana regulators to delay all 177 of Walgreen's permit requests. In Missouri, Walgreens applied for 138 liquor licenses, including more than 70 in the St. Louis area, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Those permits went into effect on March 1. Before Walgreens could start stocking alcohol, however, local municipalities also must give a green light. Some neighborhoods and cities have not-so-fond memories of loitering panhandlers and minors in the days when Walgreens used to sell alcohol, according to the newspaper report. And in Nebraska, Walgreens went to the Lincoln City Council seeking permits to sell beer and wine at 11 Lincoln stores; it got approval for six of them. The other five drugstores are in commercial zones where a special permit must be obtained before they can get a liquor license, according to a Lincoln Journal Star report. The drug-store chain applied for 53 liquor licenses statewide with the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission.
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