Advocates say the market for these products, first introduced in 1937, largely disappeared when the state raised the minimum drinking age to 21 in 1985.
State Senate president Steve Morris (R) said similar [image-nocss] bills have been stopped in the past and will likely run into well-organized resistance again from businesses seeking to avoid competition. The legislature also tends to protect locally owned liquor stores from national chains. Some of those opponents already are criticizing the bill as an attempt by supermarkets and c-stores to eventually push for the sale of liquor and wine.
According to a report by The Dodge City Daily Globe, at least three times a day, customers enter the Spee-D Stop c-store in search of full-strength beer. And each time, Speed-D stop owner Nageeb Alhaj has to direct those potential customers to a liquor store instead. Alhaj said he is getting tired of telling his customers that they need to go somewhere else to buy strong beer. "It gets old after a while, and we feel like we're losing business," he told the newspaper. "If we're after the same thing that the liquor stores do, I think we'll be able to increase our sales at our business."
Two bills pending in the LegislatureSenate Bill 76 and House Bill 2062 would essentially kill 3.2 beer, said the report, and allow c-stores, gas stations and grocery stores to apply for licenses to sell stronger beer with a maximum alcohol content of 4%.
"It doesn't make sense that the liquor stores sell the same percentage of liquor, and convenience stores sell like half of it," Alhaj added. "As a customer, if you want to buy a six-pack of beer and you're going to spend at least $6, you expect to have the same alcohol percentage on it."
But the state's liquor store lobby contends that changing the law would benefit out-of-town companies, which typically own convenience and grocery stores, at the expense of locally owned businesses.
"The 750 retail liquor stores in this state have made investments, relied upon and developed their businesses based upon this model," R.E. "Tuck" Duncan, general counsel for the Kansas Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association, told the paper. "To change the law will potentially eliminate hundreds of locally owned businesses who contribute more to the state as a percentage of their profits than the out-of-state businesses. And that seems inherently unfair."
Local liquor store owners acknowledge that changing the law could cut into their profits. And they say the change could also allow minors to purchase strong beer illegally. "That would be my largest concern," Debbie Klinginsmith, owner of Comanche Beverage Outlet, told the paper. "Because they have such a high turnover of employeesthe convenience stores doI think it would be a concern."
Gary Konrade, who owns Mr. G's Liquor Store, said he does not object to c-stores selling 3.2 beer, but he does not think they should be allowed to sell anything stronger. "If they get strong beer, the next thing they'll want is alcohol," he told the Globe. "That's the next bill they'll push for."
The Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association of Kansas says on its website that if the law changes, beer retailers would pay the same licensing fees as liquor stores, but they would sell only beernot wine or liquor.
A spokesperson for Oklahoma City-based Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores Inc., which has two stores in Dodge City, said the company would wait to see how the issue plays out in the legislature before taking a position on it.
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