Grocery Store Liquor Ballot Measure Pulled

Colorado voters will not be asked to decide on full strength beer and wine sales at grocery stores this fall.

Major grocery chains and other supporters of a ballot measure have given up that effort. King Soopers, Safeway and the Your Choice Colorado campaign say they will no longer seek a ballot measure that would have put full strength beer and wine in all Colorado supermarkets by next summer.

That’s in response to a new state law that will allow grocery chains to gradually expand beer and wine sales by buying the licenses of nearby liquor stores. The law was created as an alternative to the ballot proposal, which liquor stores and wine shops said would put them out of business.