INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana's convenience store and petroleum association is raising a clarion call over a bill that cruised through the state House and threatens the right of c-store operators to sell beer and wine.
In a state that already restricts traditional retailers to selling only warm beer and wine, House Bill 1250, approved by a bipartisan 68 to 27 vote on February 2 and now headed to the state Senate, would redefine grocers permitted to sell beer as only supermarket, grocery store, warehouse club or super center, thereby excluding c-stores and [image-nocss] gas stations.
While the measure would grandfather c-stores currently operating with liquor permits, it would ban future locations from selling alcohol and also leave permit-holders at the graces of the state Alcohol & Tobacco Commission upon permit renewal.
We're in a real battle, Scot Imus, executive director of the Indiana Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association (IPCA), told CSP Daily News. If this is passed, you really devalue the convenience store. It makes us less attractive as an investment; it obviously hurts our business and makes us less attractive to customers.
The state has issued 1,220 grocery liquor permits, of which approximately 450 are to c-stores. That represents one-sixth of the 2,660 c-stores in the state, Imus said. Indiana ranks among the lowest in the country in drunk-driving incidents or other alcohol-fueled crime.
Still, in an op-ed piece recently published in The Indianapolis Star, John Livengood contends that the c-store industry operates without the safeguards imposed on package stores and says his is a cause for the public good and one endorsed by numerous local neighborhood groups.
Gas stations and grocery stores also like to portray this debate as a turf battle rather than a public policy issue," wrote Livengood, president of the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers. "There would be no package store industry if state laws had not been written to create highly regulated locations for alcohol sales. The package store industry has played a key role in controlling access to alcohol by minors and adults with alcohol addiction.
He added, Those laws were written at a time when the problems experienced by the unregulated sale of alcohol before prohibition were still fresh in legislators' minds. We should not allow the passage of 70 years to cause us to forget those lessons that were learned the hard way.
Likewise, the association has distributed fliers charging: Just how convenient do we need alcohol purchases to be?
Not convinced by such arguments, Imus said that 78% of violations in 2005 for selling to minors occurred at liquor stores and tavernsestablishments that require employee licensing. Rather, he says the facts suggest a turf war in which the package channel, despite obvious retailing advantages, is resorting to governmental interference to overturn a three-decade right for c-stores to sell warm beer and wine.
It's purely driven by the liquor store industry, he said. They're talking about the explosion of c-stores selling beer, which is ridiculous. And they call us gas stations, not convenience stores, to put a negative spin against us. We're responsible merchants. We responsibly sell many age-restricted productslottery tickets, tobacco, cold medicine and warm beer. This is a case of one class of retailers trying to stop one of their competitors from selling beer.
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