Sam's Club wants permit to sell liquor

Sam's Club wants permit to sell liquor

	Published : Wed, 14 Feb 2007 21:55 By : Agencies Print this Story

LITTLE ROCK (AP) - An attorney representing a group of package stores told the Arkansas Court of Appeals on Wednesday that issuing a liquor permit to a Fayetteville Sam's Club would open the door for grocery stores, and even sporting goods stores to begin selling liquor in Arkansas.

The Appeals Court heard arguments in the Arkansas Beverage Retailers Association challenge of a permit issued to a Sam's Club in Fayetteville.

Charles Singleton, an attorney representing the group, told the judges that issuing the permit violates state law that prohibits grocery stores and retailers from selling liquor.

'The Legislature decided that these (liquor stores) should be stand-alone businesses, that way they would only focus on selling alcohol and not other items, such as razor blades or tires,' he said.

Sam's Club warehouse stores are a division of Bentonville-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The Fayetteville liquor store would hold Wal-Mart's only permit to sell liquor in Arkansas. A state law bars the holder of a permit from having more than one.

A lawyer for Sam's Club argued that the Fayetteville store would be in compliance because the liquor store would be in a separate building and have separate employees from the Sam's Club warehouse store.

'You are not going to have a bottle of Jim Beam right next to a gallon of milk,' attorney Mike Shannon told the judges. 'The real issue here is they are upset about who got the permit.'

Shannon argued that the group did not have standing to challenge the permit because none of its members could prove that they have been denied the ability to sell retail items in the same way Sam's Club has proposed.

Judge Josephine Linker Hart, however, repeatedly asked Shannon why the group could not challenge the permit based on the precedent it might set.

The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board voted in July 2005 to grant Sam's a permit for a 458-square-foot liquor store adjacent to a Sam's Club store being built in Fayetteville. The Arkansas Beverage Retailers Association challenged the permit in court, but lost last year.

Last March, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Ellen Brantley upheld the ABC's decision to award the permit to Sam's. The retailers group had argued the Sam's Club liquor store violates state law, which says liquor stores can sell only alcohol and related items.

State law also prohibits the sale of alcohol, except Arkansas-made wines, in grocery stores, and Fayetteville has a city ordinance that prohibits the sale of beer and wine in grocery stores.

The planned Sam's Club liquor store will be attached to the 136,500-square-foot store. The Sam's Club, which sells groceries, dry goods, furniture and other items, will share a wall with the liquor store, but the operations will have separate entrances.