Derby Merchant Weighs In On Sunday Booze Sales

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.

Keep local reporting alive. Donate.ValleyIndy.org