Our Mission

Our mission is to create a better and healthier future for Colorado liquor retailers and the customers they serve.

Colorado liquor consumers are hurting under a decade of what many call the ‘liquor wars’; ill-conceived and disjointed changes to state liquor laws.

Consumers take the brunt of the liquor wars through higher prices and a revolving door of here today-gone tomorrow retail stores.

Over 60 local liquor retailers have shut their doors since wine and beer sales became legal in the chain grocery stores, shrinking access and shedding jobs in our economy.

At the same time, a tangle of liquor license categories and proliferating regulations has plagued retailers and allows for four different types of retail liquor licenses. Ill-considered changes in Colorado liquor laws have our local retailers reeling and their customers wanting.

The result is at the same time communities are hurting from losing liquor stores they love. Local jobs leave and community economies are affected.  

One top of all that, the Colorado craft beverage industry – beer, wine and spirits – that so many of us love is being decimated by losing the retailers that buy and promote their products.  

THERE IS A SIMPLE, ELEGANT WAY TO PROTECT COLORADO RETAILERS, SUPPORT BEVERAGE CONSUMERS AND STOP THE REVOLVING DOOR OF LIQUOR LAW CHANGES - keep reading to hear about CLCA’s one license solution!

How it Works

  • Convert all current retail liquor sales licenses to one category of license

  • Eliminate the Liquor License Drug Store (LLDS) category of license

  • Allow for expansion of licenses along a similar timeline according to this schedule {DOM, need to add]:

How We All Benefit

  • The One License Solution would condense Colorado’s multiple liquor retail liquor licenses into a single license for every type of retail – from the corner mom-and-pop to the largest retail chains.

  • The One License Solution gets the state out of picking winners and losers and instead allows everyone to compete on a fair and equitable playing field.  This means a host of consumer and community benefits:

    • One License gives retailers a more certain business environment and means retailers spend less on bureaucracy and can focus more on improving their businesses to lower cost and improve selection.

    • One License gives retailers an even playing field and more market power to negotiate better prices from liquor wholesalers and pass those savings on to consumers.

    • One License also gives the small and especially minority-owned retailers a stronger voice and more power in the marketplace.

  • The One-License Solution protects local retailers by giving them ending the eternal business uncertainty of adverse changes to liquor laws – a situation that now forces retailers to take time away from their customers almost every year  to battle changes to the law that would otherwise erode their business.

  • At the same time the One-License Solution gives retailers the first real opportunity to seek real investor capital by letting any retailer hold THE SAME NUMBER of multiple licenses.  This helps small retailers join together and have a fighting chance against the larger retail chains.

  • Simplifying Colorado’s complicated liquor license system also cuts the bureaucracy and funding needed to enforce liquor laws – more time and resources to focus on a single set of laws rather than dozens of different regulations.

Create One Type of Retail Liquor License for Anyone Selling Beer, Wine & Spirits