This September the Washington State Liquor Control Board will open a new liquor store in the City of Kirkland. It will be the second such store within current city limits, with a third store in the Kirkland annexation area. But by November there may be none.
Two initiatives, that are on the precipice of being put on the November ballot, could change everything. Those initiatives aim to privatize liquor sales in Washington State.
Despite the possibility of two highly popular initiatives being placed on the ballot, the state is going forward with the new liquor store in the former Hollywood Video building located at 11220 N.E. 124th Street in Kirkland.
“We were directed to open 15 new stores this year,” said Washington State Liquor Control Board spokesperson Anne Radford. “At this point we are going forward with the biennium budget directive.”
The new store, which is located in the parking lot of the Totem Lake QFC, is currently being remolded to house the liquor store. Despite the size of the building, the store will be “comparable” for a Washington State liquor store at 5,841 square feet, according to Radford. The State has signed a 10-year lease for the building but Radford confirmed that language in the agreement would terminate the lease if the laws governing state-run liquor sales were to change.
Crews have been remodeling the building for weeks, including an exterior paint job and new signs, which have already been mounted on the facade.
“At this point they are working on the interior of the building,” said Radford.
The state identified the new location last fall based on demographics and how many people live in the area who are 21 and older.
The other Washington State liquor store in Kirkland is located in Houghton near the new Metropolitan Market. The store in the annexation area is located next to the Juanita Safeway.
Corporate sponsors have poured more then $2 million into both initiative campaigns. I-1100 submitted 396,000 signatures on June 23, while representatives for I-1105 said that they are confident that they would have more than enough signatures by the July 2 deadline (the Reporter could not confirm the receipt of the petition before deadline thanks to the holiday weekend).
The initiatives only need 241,000 valid signatures to get on the November ballot, a threshold that most experts agree will be met. Election staff will check random signatures on both to verify the validity of the petitions.
And while both measures would end the practice of state-controlled sales of liquor in Washington, they are very different.
I-1100 is sponsored by the group Modernize Washington and primarily funded by Costco, which has contributed over $700,000 to the campaign. If passed, I-1100 would be more beneficial to retail businesses as it would not include any price controls, make the cost of liquor licenses the same for both small and large retailers and allow retailers to go directly to manufacturers to get their supplies.
I-1105 is sponsored by the group Washington Citizens for Liquor Reform and primarily funded by distribution companies such as Young’s Market Company of Los Angeles and Odom Southern Holding of Bellevue, which have contributed well over $1.3 million to the campaign. I-1105 would be more beneficial for wholesalers as it would include some price controls, requires retailers to go through distributors and the cost of a liquor license would be determined by how much retailers sell.
“… if both pass, it would fall to the Legislature and/or the courts to sort it out, possibly deferring to the version that got the greater number of votes,” said Dave Ammons, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office. “To my knowledge, this situation has not come up before. Voters turned down two rival medical malpractice initiatives, and two rival anti-tax measures in 1993 …”
Washington state has run liquor sales since 1933 when prohibition ended.
