New bill would allow grocery stores to sell cocktails in a can

House Bill 3730, sponsored by state Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland) at the request of the Northwest Grocery Retail Association, comes with a sweetener. The grocers are proposing a high rate of taxation: $8 a gallon, which is more than twice the tax rate in California.

Nosse emphasized that benefit in a statement on the bill. “Allowing grocery stores to sell ready-to-drink cocktails gives our homegrown businesses greater market access, expanding consumer choice and generating new tax revenue that will directly fund youth alcohol and drug addiction prevention and treatment programs,” he said.

In the byzantine world of Oregon alcohol regulation, grocers are currently allowed to sell as much beer and wine, hard seltzers and wine-based cocktails as their customers will buy (including products containing more than 14% alcohol). But they cannot sell canned cocktails made from a hard liquor base.

Canned cocktails — which people in the industry also call “ready to drink,” or RTDs — are currently the province of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission and sold through 282 state-chartered liquor stores. (RTDs are sold in grocery stores in 31 states.)

The Northwest Grocery Retail Association, which has long sought to get in on the fast-growing RTD market segment, says its members' 792 grocery stores have vastly more refrigerated shelf space than state liquor stores. And, according to NGA polling, customers are eager for broader, more convenient distribution of the product.

While sales of liquor and wine have stagnated and even declined in some categories following a COVID-fueled bacchanalia, canned cocktail sales in Oregon are growing rapidly, even with limited shelf space.

Here are the OLCC’s statistics: 

The bill is not yet scheduled for a hearing but is likely to face opposition from liquor store agents and the other interest groups that have historically opposed grocers' attempts to change OLCC policy, including craft brewers and beer and wine distributors.

The bill has already drawn criticism from a lawmaker who has long raised concerns about the negative health consequences of drinking.

State Rep. Tawna Sanchez (D-Portland), who co-chairs the budget-writing Joint Ways and Means Committee, says she will oppose the bill. 

“HB 3730 is clearly designed to vastly increase the sales of hard liquor products that are largely targeted to younger people, and to have those sales take place outside of Oregon’s careful system of regulating distilled alcohol,” Sanchez said. “This is a terrible idea with serious implications for the health and safety of Oregonians.”