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Indiana’s package store owners are Hoosier-based businesses by law and represent more than 1,000 retail locations throughout Indiana.
They also represent a community face unlike many big-box stores and chains that have out-of-state home offices and corporate headquarters. While legally limited on the number of products they can sell, they represent a better selection, choice and price for wine, microbrews, and spirits.
The average Costco has 200 wine SKUs (Stock Keeping Units which identify inventory) while Walmart and Target have 500. By contrast, in one Central Indiana-based package store inventory, the company’s SKUs are equivalent to an offering of 4,500 wines, 2,700 spirits and 2,300 domestic and craft beers.
The three-tier regulatory system ensures competitive pricing, orderly markets and considerable access to markets and selection for consumers. The Supreme Court also has acknowledged and affirmed the three-tier system as legitimate.
Despite many court battles, the three-tier system is intact and has served the public’s interest well for more than 75 years.
According to a prominent court decision: “No one believes that the terms and conditions for sale of intoxicating liquor should be established by the greediest seller and the thirstiest drinker, and neither state nor federal law has ever permitted such a regime.”
In Indiana, only three random-sample and scientific surveys have been completed over the years that represent a true picture of Hoosier beliefs on alcohol sales. Two were conducted by the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers; one was conducted by The Indianapolis Star (as recently as last year).
Both the media poll and the association polls relied on professional survey firms experienced in sampling representative cross-sections of Hoosier voices.
As legitimate polls of Hoosiers have confirmed, preferences to regulate alcohol sales and products have not changed much over the years.
The most current poll, completed in October 2008 by Stone Research Services, showed that nearly two-thirds of adults surveyed agree that state laws should stay the same concerning retail sales of alcohol on Sunday.
Under Indiana law, package stores can sell only TEN products—mainly wine, beer and alcohol. Other sundry products approved for sale by the Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission include bar supplies, tobacco products, printed materials such as fishing licenses and lottery tickets, and warm soda.
The total number of permits in Indiana began to increase when retailers such as Osco Drug, Kroger, Meijer, Walmart and Village Pantry began to push for more relaxed rules, less regulation, and lawsuits challenging commission policies.
From the 1970s through the 1980s, both conveniences stores and drug stores began applying for permits because of a lack of a grocery store definition in state law. That definition was clarified by the Indiana Legislature in 2007, when groups vying for market share agreed to compromises in law such as lowering the number of permits available.
John Livengood – Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers CEO/President
Package Store Owners
Warren Scheidt – The Cork (Bartholomew, Shelby Counties) – 9 stores (28 years in business)
Randy Zion – Liquor Barn (Marion, Hamilton Counties) – 7 stores (36 years in business)
Jon Sinder – Crown Liquors (Marion, Hamilton, Hendricks Counties) – 19 stores (20 years in business)
Jerry Corliss - Chalet Party Shoppe (Elkhart County) - 6 stores (29 years in business)
Ron Culp – Elmwood Liquors (Tippecanoe County) – 1 store (4 years in business)
“Six Days a Week” video features Ray Cox, owner of Elite Beverages, who has 5 stores in Marion and Hancock Counties. Cox has been in business 23 years.
Study Committee Final Report Issued Oct. 20, 2009: No Sunday Sales
In Indiana
1981: Grocery stores in Indiana unsuccessfully lobbied for cold beer sales, repeal of quotas for permits, and abolishing the state’s regulatory commission.
1982: Osco Drug sues the state and wins the right to move alcohol out to a prominent retail location “on the floor.”
1984: Taxes on alcohol sales are raised in Indiana; package stores are allowed to do wine samplings in their stores.
1984: Kocolene, a gas station/convenience store, successfully sues the state overturning a decision to ban the sale of alcohol and gasoline at the same retail location.
1994: Michigan-based Meijer begins applying for permits to sell hard liquor under pharmacy licenses but agrees with the state’s regulatory commission to sell it only in a segregated area.
1997: The Indiana Legislature changes the population-based distribution system for alcohol permits reducing the number of allowable package store permits and limiting other new permits for drug stores and grocery stores.
2004: Under threat of lawsuit by Walmart, the ATC allows drug stores, big box stores, and grocery stores with pharmacies to move distilled spirits from a segregated location to any location in the store.
2005: Traditional grocery stores begin adding pharmacies so they can sell distilled spirits along with beer and wine.
2005: Package stores support legislation that is passed to create mandatory training programs store clerks; grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores and gas stations with alcohol permits opposed the training and are exempted by lawmakers.
2008: Compromise legislation is passed in Indiana better defining a grocery store that qualifies for a permit, increasing enforcement penalties and fines.
In the Nation
1933: Prohibition is repealed.
1933-1935: States establish alcohol beverage controls regulations under what become known as the three-tier system.
1970: States begin to lower the drinking age to 18.
1980: Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) forms.
1984: Congress passes the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which imposes a penalty of 10 percent on state federal highway appropriations for any state setting a drinking age lower than 21.
1988: Federal law requires government health warnings on alcohol containers.
1991: Federal excise taxes are raised on alcoholic beverage and have not been raised since.
2008: The Amethyst Initiative sharply divides the nation’s university presidents and chancellors on lowering the drinking age to 18.
