Since 2009, almost every downtown liquor store has unknowingly been violating its license.
“I walked in on Saturday afternoon last week and one of the other guys here… gave me the scoop on it,” says Matt Bents, general manager of Riley’s Wines of the World. “It’s something that I think was overlooked by pretty much everybody downtown.”
In 2006, in an attempt to mitigate public drunkenness downtown, the Alcohol License Review Committee adopted language restricting the sale of beer in volumes less than that available in a six pack, with exceptions for micro-breweries and imports. In 2009 the ALRC decided that there were too many loopholes and got rid of the exceptions. But downtown stores continued operating under the pre-2009 rules.
“Apparently it’s been this way for a while but nobody really knew,” says Bents. “No one was really informed of the changes that were made in the licenses, or that it would have this effect.”
“Unbelievably, no one ever noticed for these last six years that there were new conditions,” says Ald. Mike Verveer, who sits on the ALRC and represents part of downtown.
The issue surfaced with the granting of a liquor license for a Monroe Street Kwik Trip last year. It had convinced the ALRC to grant a more relaxed license allowing the sale of beer in smaller sizes.
“Apparently, as soon as they opened,” says Verveer, “salespeople from some of the distributors notified other area stores that Kwik Trip was able to sell single cans of anything they wanted, with almost no restrictions.”
Within a few months, a nearby 7-11 and the Kelley’s market filed applications to have their conditions relaxed as well. This prompted a global examination by the ALRC of all volume restrictions in the downtown area. They found that popular stores such as Riley’s and Capitol Centre Market had been violating the restrictions since 2009.
“After many months of delay,” says Verveer, “we finally had to deal with this issue head-on because we found ourselves at liquor license renewal time.”
While stores have been quick to adjust their policies since becoming aware of violations, they’re not happy with the restrictions. These changes were originally put in place in 2006 and 2009 to discourage “habitually intoxicated individuals” from purchasing inexpensive quantities of alcohol, but retailers are concerned that it will have a greater impact on micro-brew consumers, a significant slice of the Madison beer market.
“There are so many craft breweries that have packaging of four-packs, because they’re either very seasonal or because of price point,” says Kristie Maurer, store director at Madison Fresh Market. “We also sell the bomber size, which is pretty big in the craft movement… and so we won’t be able to sell that either.”
Maurer uses the example of Alt Brew, a small Madison based brewery that produces gluten-free beer exclusively in a bomber size.
“I will have to pull them from my shelf until [the owner] gets to a point that hopefully he is bigger, and we can continue to sell his product [in larger packages].”
Bents has similar concerns.
“There have been a few people that have walked out because they weren’t able to buy the single bomber or whatever that they would normally buy,” he says. “The only people it’s affecting are the craft beer consumers.”
He hopes that the restrictions will change in the next few weeks as the ALRC hears from downtown retailers about the rules they have only just been made aware of. His store is working with city officials to find a solution.
Verveer wants to develop new language balancing retailer’s concerns with the spirit of the 2009 regulations.
“I have been in conversation after conversation every day since late last week,” he says. “In my estimation [the language] on these liquor licenses is more broad than it needs to be.”
