My opinion on Sunday sales:
Derby Discount Liquors is firm on its opinion for Sunday or late sales: If it’s for the convenience of the people of Connecticut, we’re for it.
We don’t feel we will lose business or fear closing.
It comes down to your business plan — when something changes, you have to make adjustments to your plan to make things work.
We currently have over 150 types of craft beer and hundreds of unique wines and spirits. If Sunday sales pass, we will do our best to make our collection even more unique, something that customers will go out of their way for.
We will also do tastings almost daily to make sure customers make educated decisions and never leave wondering, “Am I going to like this?”
Having said that, wrapping up Sunday sales into some sort of revenue generating plan is completely insulting.
The government is saying that revenue will increase by $5-8 million.
That means the entire state of Connecticut will have to consume a gross of $120 million more per year from those 52 extra selling days. That $120 million was calculated by statisticians that seem to work on linear extrapolations.
They calculated what liquors stores make as an average, per day. They then took this average sales per day and multiplied it by the 52 Sundays, and voila! Look Ma! Instant revenue!
They forget the variable that people don’t drink the same amount every day, and a majority of people buy ahead on Saturday as it is. This seems like common sense to us, so how does everyone else in the government not see the same thing we do?
Putting the government’s computing aside, you can’t generate income out of thin air. If package store revenue to the state goes up, what has to go down? Answer: Bars.
Instead of getting tax on every $7 beer a bar sells, they will make the tax on a $7 six-pack. Connecticut will not see the end of their problems from the money package stores generate.
When they pushed for 9 p.m. sales instead of 8 p.m. – they did the same math, said millions of dollars would be made from the extra hour.
Guess how much added revenue was generated? ZERO.
Do your part, stop focusing on booze and focus on all the things the government is ignoring to deal with the people that want Sunday Sales.
Pass it or don’t pass it, let’s just move on.
To the people that have come together to try and get this bill passed; Would you be willing to use the SAME PASSION to address issues with education, highways, taxes, or the hundreds of other things that need addressing?
The people have a voice, but are we using that voice to get what’s really important?
The author is the owner of Derby Discount Liquors at 441 Roosevelt Drive in Derby. The store can be reached at 203-732-0666
The Valley Indy publishes guest columns with a 500-word limit. We don’t necessarily agree with the opinions expressed.
I dissagree with later sales and opening on sundays… for someone who has a family buisness that means less time withr their families…. if people are going to buy after 9 illegally or in NY than they will do it after 10. And sundays are suppose to be a religious day, what is so wrong for people to buy saturday what they need for sunday. I believe sales will be the same there will just be more electricity bills for the owners…..
I don’t really think it matters what any one person thinks, nor do I think it is any business of the state’s to say to a business man/woman what kind of hours he/she should be able to keep. The danger in this proposal comes on the vast financial changes associated with the buying/selling of liquor. There is more to this proposal than just hours of operation. There is a massive overhaul of how liquor is distributed, taxed, ordered and sold associated with this. It would cripple the small package store because in order to get good pricing from a distributor you would have to buy 60 cases of Absolut to get it at a good price to sell it at a profit. The devil is in the details… Oh and its just the catholic/christian people who believe that sunday nonsense. You’re not the only religion in the world, why should everybody have to abide by your fairy tales.. just sayin.
James, wouldn’t the taxation laws already be in effect?
Mr. Patel’s assessment on Sunday liquor sales makes sense to me, as he should know — having a business to operate — which leaves him to try to — survive with the fittest.
Sunday liquor sales, I agree with Mr. Patel, is not one of the states’ real priorities, and hopefully, Gov. Malloy is not using it as a smokescreen, to try to produce more taxes “for his documented tax and spend agenda.”
James I totally agree. The longer hours are the carrot they are dangling in front of us, but the financials will put the smaller mom and pops out of business.
James is correct about the pricing structure. Malloy wants to get rid of the State Minimum pricing model. As it stands, if I buy 300 cases of bud, and another store buys 5, we both pay the same price for them. This model protects the small business. In New Jersey, for example,the more you buy, the cheaper it is, the cheaper you can offer it to your customers. You rarely see a small liquor store in NJ for that reason, they’re all HUGE. Malloy, who is supposedly FOR the small
business, wants to pass this law which is definitely against the small business. More against than Sunday sales. The amusing irony here is if both points pass, Sunday sales & Pricing Change, then his theory of 5-8 million will be impossible. Cause when you remove the state mins,stores will cut each others throats to make a buck, that means more savings for consumers, but LESS taxes going to the state for every sale. How he doesn’t see that, boggles my mind. I do think it’s notthat he doesn’t see it, he’s just doing it on the sly to gain by time so he can find another scapegoat in a few years.
I bought a store in CT because of many reasons, but Sunday being closed was a perk, not a reason to buy. If you feel that strongly
about wanting a family day, you can stay closed, shorten your hours during the week, close on Monday, or buy a store in the other state that has Sunday’s closed. As things change, people have to adapt. As
they said in Shawshank Redemption: “get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.”