DENVER • David Harper of Colorado Springs owns a 7-Eleven near the intersection of I-25 and Circle Drive. He was not minding the store Tuesday morning.

Harper and hundreds of other convenience store operators were in the state Capitol, rallying in support of a bill that would legalize the sale of full-strength beer in the state’s supermarkets and convenience stores.

Liquor stores oppose the measure, which is being introduced this week.

Surrounded by boxes and stacks of petitions containing what organizers said were nearly 58,000 “real beer” signatures collected at 7-Elevens across the state, Rep. Liane “Buffie” McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, said she was proud to be the lead House sponsor of the bill, adding that it would level the playing field and increase free-market competition.

“This bill is about fairness,” McFadyen said. “It’s about the state getting out of the business of telling one set of businesses what you can sell and another set of businesses what you cannot sell.”

She also said the bill would spell the doom, at least in Colorado, of “an archaic product called 3.2 alcohol.” Beer with an alcohol content of 3.2 percent, about half the strength of regular beer, is sold in Colorado and four other states that forbid sales of full-strength beer in grocery stores.

Groceries used to sell much 3.2 beer on Sunday, when liquor stores were closed. But since July, when state law changed to allow liquor stores to open on Sunday, the grocery and convenience stores say their beer sales have declined by two-thirds.

Harper said his Sunday sales of 3.2 beer are down $600 to $1,000. If the bill passes, “I would just hope to get back what we lost,” he said. If so, he said, he would be looking to restore the 80 hours of weekly payroll that he had to trim when his sales slumped.

Conspicuous by their absence from Tuesday’s rally were representatives of the big supermarket chains, which stand to gain from the bill at least as much as the convenience stores.

Opponents of the bill held a news conference outside the room where the supporters gathered. Jeanne McEvoy, executive director of the Colorado Licensed Beverage Association, said the bill would be devastating to her group’s membership, the state’s 1,650 liquor stores, and cost jobs at a time when unemployment is rising.

McEvoy said a study by Summit Economics, a Colorado Springs company, forecast the closure of 700 liquor stores in three years if the bill becomes law. That translates to 4,830 lost jobs, $700 million in revenues and a permanent $90 million loss in wages, she said.

“Our economy’s in the tank,” she said. “I can’t imagine that anybody would want to think that this is a good idea.”

She noted that many employees of supermarkets and convenience stores are under the drinking age, and warned that they would be under pressure from underage friends and classmates to sell them beer illegally.

Eric Wallace, president of Left Hand Brewing of Longmont and vice president of the Colorado Brewers Guild, also spoke out against the bill, saying it would hurt Colorado’s craft brewing industry, which is a nationally recognized leader.

Small brewers can find a niche among the state’s liquor stores, Wallace said, but they cannot compete with megabreweries for space on shelves of supermarkets and convenience stores.

____Contact the writer: 476-1654 or dean.toda@gazettedev.gazette.com  

Photo by Bryan Oller