As several large grocery store chains prepare to spend millions on a ballot question asking voters if grocery stores should be allowed to sell full-strength beer and wine, lawmakers are scrambling with a bill in the final days of session that could satisfy the grocers while protecting independent liquor stores.

Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, introduced Senate Bill 197 in late April as a last-ditch compromise to forestall a ballot initiative and instead allow multiple beer and wine licenses for grocery stores to be phased in. In addition, the bill would require grocers to offset the impact they have on nearby liquor stores by purchasing their licenses.

Steadman was praised for building consensus on the issue. Still, several key grocers weren’t on board when the bill was heard in committee last week.

The bill passed on third-reading in the Senate on Monday and likely will be heard Tuesday in the House business committee.

Meanwhile Your Choice Colorado, a registered issue committee, is collecting signatures on a proposed initiative petition. The group has raised $2.2 million, according to campaign disclosures filed with the Secretary of State. The money came from a nonprofit “social welfare” group called Colorado Consumer Choice Coalition. Social welfare groups do not have to disclose their donors, thus obscuring the money’s source.

The corresponding group for the liquor stores, who oppose opening up the licenses to grocers, has raised $3 million. Of that, $1.1 million came from Keep Colorado Independent “a coalition of locally owned and independent businesses.” The rest came primarily from large liquor stores in Colorado.

With billions in sales at risk, the campaign fight could get expensive.

Advocates of the status quo have an uphill battle.

Even Rep. Dan Nordberg, a House sponsor of Steadman’s bill, admits that.

“This bill was brought to me last Thursday as a concerted last attempt to honor the fact that people want more access to alcohol in the marketplace but also to respect those small businesses that have been abiding by a certain structure and rules since prohibition,” Nordberg said. “This attempt at its core is to try to come up with a compromise that will benefit everyone and not have a one-sided solution.”

That argument is too nuanced for the ballot box, he said.

“These initiatives would pass at the ballot, but I also believe there is more to the story than just that,” Nordberg said. “Context is everything.”

Steadman said he has been advocating for context on this issue as his bill works its way through the process.

“We are trying to gradually transition to where it’s really a free market approach,” Steadman said. “The goal is to transition to a more modern open system … that doesn’t change the rules over night and put mom and pop out of business.”

Gov. John Hickenlooper has said he opposes the initiatives because they would put local liquor stores out of business and cost thousands of Coloradans good paying jobs.

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Contact Megan Schrader

719-286-0644

Twitter: @CapitolSchrader

FILE – Alcohol for sale at Safeway at South Broadway and Mineral in Littleton on Tuesday, October 20, 2015. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

AAron Ontiveroz