Walmart backs effort to allow full-strength beer sales in Utah grocery and convenience stores

Beer in a supermarket, Salt Lake City, Utah, undated. | File photo courtesy of Ben Winslow, Fox13now.com, St. George News

SALT LAKE CITY — Signs are being posted on the beer aisles in Walmart stores across Utah urging consumers to get involved in the push to get rid of 3.2 beer.

Customers are urged to text a number to get involved in Walmart’s “Customer Action Network” as the mega-retailer pressures the Utah State Legislature to change the legal definition of beer to allow heavier brews to be sold in grocery and convenience stores, according to a report by Fox13Now.com.

“Walmart is currently asking our customers who already buy 3.2 beer if they would like the option to purchase full-strength beer in grocery and convenience stores, without having to travel to a state-operated liquor store. With recent changes to Oklahoma, Colorado, and Kansas laws, Utah remains one of the only states where consumers don’t have this option,” Walmart spokeswoman Tiffany Wilson said in a statement to FOX 13.

Utah represents less than one half of a percent of all the beer drinkers in America.

Walmart’s very public move into the battle over 3.2 beer has surprised some on Utah’s Capitol Hill, where efforts to allow heavier beers into grocery and convenience stores have so far gone nowhere.

Read the full story here.

Written by BEN WINSLOW, Fox13Now.com

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @STGnews

Copyright 2018, KSTU. A Tribune broadcasting station

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17 Comments

  • Borowiak Mark December 12, 2018 at 8:59 pm

    Again, need to vote.

  • bikeandfish December 12, 2018 at 9:52 pm

    It will take the money of corporations and tourists to change this archaic law. Another example of how many Utah conservatives don’t truly value personal freedom of choice, free market, etc.

  • Real Life December 12, 2018 at 9:55 pm

    The Mormon ran DABC is way too greedy to pass up all the money they will lose. 3.2 beer is almost gone, and the real stuff will fill the shelves very soon.

  • iceplant December 12, 2018 at 11:11 pm

    WalMart has a greed-driven angle here.
    With three stores in Washington Co. alone they’d make a killing. Follow the $$$.

  • Redbud December 13, 2018 at 1:15 am

    This is SOOOO awesome! Thank you Walmart for helping push this!

  • michael bodell December 13, 2018 at 4:40 am

    It’s just ridiculous that adults wanting a decent beer have to find a messy and inconvenient state liquor store to purchase a limited variety of warm and seriously overpriced heavy beer. I’m ready to sign the petition now and quit wasting time on unresponsive legislators who fail to work for the people and not a religion.

  • sheepobserver December 13, 2018 at 5:11 am

    St. George Costco carrying beer……..the thought makes me smile. I can dream.

  • Lucy2018 December 13, 2018 at 7:14 am

    Dilly Dilly!

    • HerePliggyWiggy December 14, 2018 at 7:46 am

      Dilly Dilly to you too!

  • Carpe Diem December 13, 2018 at 7:50 am

    Be realistic… Utah wants to make the legal DUI level of BAC 0.00, down from the brand new 0.05… So we can be like Afghanistan, Qatar, UAE, Iran, Iraq, and that khat chewing crazy place called Yemen.

    The 0.05 was sold when Senate Majority Whip Stuart Adams, R-Layton, who sponsored the bill in that chamber, said that the change will likely save the lives of 63 Utahns every year. But he didn’t tell anyone he was lying, lie lie lie, because that’s more lives than Utah has ever lost in a year to drunken-driving incidents. The state has averaged fewer than 40 deaths per year caused by drunken drivers.

  • KR567 December 13, 2018 at 12:30 pm

    I dont drink so this isnt a concern for me but if somebody wants a real beer then let them have one

  • DB December 13, 2018 at 2:04 pm

    I seem to remember reading that the brewers say that the market for 3.2 beer is so small now that it’s no longer economically feasible to make it.

  • Kilroywashere December 13, 2018 at 5:26 pm

    Don’t get too excited. Do you really think the Later Day Saint Church Utah Government cabal will allow this to happen? This is nothing compared to their actions taken to undermine proposition 2 that was subject to a statewide vote according to a democratic process. Walmart can gather all the signatures they want, but it will be in vain. This is dead on arrival. Well if you dont like it you can just move!!!! Lol.

    • ToniB December 14, 2018 at 7:47 am

      I’m not so sure about that. The balance of power seems to be changing.

  • glory December 14, 2018 at 5:57 pm

    The Mormons aren’t being forced to drink beer or any liquor for that matter. The rest of the Utah population should be able to buy real beer at any store that sells beer. And before I’d go to the state liquor store to buy real beer I’d go to Mesquite. I don’t care to contribute profit to our state when it allows itself to be influenced by the Mormon church.

  • An actual Independent December 15, 2018 at 8:56 am

    The real issue for the stores is that 3.2 beer will cease to exist very soon. Breweries will be unable to produce it at a reasonable cost because there is just no demand. So for the stores in Utah, they’ll need regular strength beer or just lose all that revenue. I’ve read many times that a convenience store simply cannot survive without beer sales, so it’s a big deal.
    If they don’t change the rule, there will be no beer in stores here. This of course is exactly what the authoritarian People’s Theocracy of Utah wants. Everybody has to go to a State Liquor store and pay exorbitant prices and taxes. So the hypocrites running the show get to profit tremendously from beer sales, pretending all the while that they’ve saved us all from the evils of the world’s oldest, safest beverage.

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