INDIANAPOLIS – Ricker’s convenience stores will likely keep state-issued licenses to sell cold beer in two stores for a year.
But many in the Indiana General Assembly are pushing hard to control future renewal of those licenses, as well as liquor licenses connected to nail salons, specialty food stores and other establishments.
On Monday, the House Public Policy committee approved Senate Bill 358, which had already passed the Senate, with amendments sparked by the Ricker’s controversy. The bill heads to the House floor.
In March, the Anderson-based Ricker’s obtained restaurant licenses from the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commission after refitting stores in Sheridan and Columbus. Ricker's found a loophole that its in-store restaurants selling burritos and Mexican fare qualified for a different liquor license. State law prohibits gas stations from selling cold beer.
Ricker’s has 56 stores in Indiana.
The Ricker’s move irritated Republicans in the Indiana General Assembly, and they reacted quickly.
“The public policy of this state is we don’t sell cold beer and spirits at the same place you buy gas,” Bosma said recently. “And that’s what we have right now.”
The Public Policy measure, which was actually the bill's 21st amendment, requires a retailer to show that 30 percent or more of its gross sales are from alcohol that is consumed on site.
Rep Terri Austin, D-Anderson, voted against the measure.
"It seems incredibly unfair to me that a business who went through all the processes that we required ... legally obtained a permit to operate as a restaurant ... and they get to keep their permit for one year," she said. "And now we’re coming in and changing the rules of the game on them, saying that if you want to have a permit moving forward you have to meet this new threshold that we put in place."
Currently, five businesses, including nail salons and Ricker's, have obtained licenses to sell cold beer.
The Senate proposal has also brought into question the impact on specialty food shops if only grocery stores are allowed to sell alcohol. Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R-Fort Wayne) has said that the measure would disqualify gourmet-food shop Grapevine Cottage, whose stores in Zionsville and Fishers rely on wine sales to supplement their cheese and food sales.
Voting Monday for the Public Policy amendment, Rep. Ben Smaltz, R-Auburn, chair of the committee, said, "If we don’t pause this now where we have five permitees in this particular situation and we don’t make any changes, when we come back next year we could have 500 to deal with."
Smaltz also told the committee that he believed the two Ricker's restaurant licenses would stay in effect at least until they face renewal in one year.
Similarly, House Bill 1496, also addressing cold beer sales, has advanced to the Senate floor.
Legislators in both chambers have asked for a summer study committee to look at reforming the state’s alcohol laws.
House Public Policy member Matthew Lehman, R-Berne, likened alcohol law reform to the eight years it took for the legislature to change criminal code. He speculated that alcohol law reform could take two years.
Smaltz also acknowledged that he considered alcohol regulation reform “as big and as complex” as criminal code reform.