Come June 1, liquor will be available at three former state liquor stores and a variety of other retail establishments in Clallam and Jefferson counties.
The state stores in Sequim and Port Townsend will change to private ownership June 1, said two men who submitted successful bids in April for the right to apply for the stores’ liquor licenses.
Five smaller stores in Quilcene, Brinnon and Port Hadlock in Jefferson County, and Forks and Clallam Bay in Clallam County — which contract with and get their liquor through the state — also must operate as private businesses and purchase their own liquor if they remain open June 1 and beyond.
Port Angeles — alone among North Olympic Peninsula communities — will be dry of store-bought hard liquor for close to two weeks.
That’s because the state liquor store at 1331 E. Front St. will close beginning Tuesday, the state Liquor Control Board announced last week. This shuts off all retail hard-liquor sales in the city of 19,000 during a period that includes the three-day Memorial Day weekend.
It will reopen under private ownership June 1, the first day of private liquor sales statewide under voter-approved Initiative 1183.
The Port Angeles establishment — with the closest liquor store 15 miles away in Sequim — is one of 11 stores statewide and the only one among eight on the Peninsula that will shut down at least temporarily.
The closures are because of staff shortages prompted by the impending change in the liquor trade brought about by I-1183, which was approved last November, according to Mikhail Carpenter, a spokesman for the state Liquor Control Board.
“As we experience employee attrition and are getting closer to the turnover date, we had to close some branches early,” Carpenter said.
Forks liquor store manager Greg Munson has retired, and the store has closed, Carpenter said.
The Peninsula’s other contract stores will remain open, said Clallam Bay liquor store employee Karen Sargent and store managers in Brinnon, Port Hadlock and Quilcene Friday in separate interviews.
Helen Morris said she’s run the Quilcene contract store for 37 years and has no intention of quitting now.
But the new arrangement comes with a catch that has put her in somewhat of a financial bind, she said.
“I’ll have to go out and buy the alcohol on my own,” she lamented.
“I’ll have to take the hit. I had to get a loan.”
Abi Eshagi of Woodinville submitted a $125,000 bid for the chance to obtain the liquor license for the Port Angeles liquor store.
Kulbir Singh of Brazil, Ind., submitted the winning $63,200 bid for the Sequim liquor store at 1400 W. Washington St. and the winning $54,900 bid for the Port Townsend store at 2005 E. Sims Way.
Singh and Eshagi said last week they were still waiting for their liquor license applications to be approved.
But they already have reached lease agreements to keep the stores where they are and did not expect any problems obtaining the licenses, they said.
Eshagi, a 46-year-old former airline pilot and Seattle nightclub owner, was in Port Angeles on Friday to inform the store employees that he wants them to stay.
He said he will pay them the same wages they have earned as state employees.
“It works for both of us,” said Eshagi, standing inside the Port Angeles store shortly after noon.
“I get their experience, and they are keeping their jobs.”
Port Angeles liquor store manager Jen Ramsey said she looked forward to staying put.
Ramsey, 39 and the mother of two teenage sons, said Friday that not knowing over the past several months if she would lose her job “was very scary.”
Singh, a hotel owner who purchased the rights to apply for licenses to nine liquor stores in Washington state, said he, too, wants to keep the same employees and that his Sequim and Port Townsend operations will add beer to the stores’ inventory.
Both want to buy the stores’ existing inventory from the state, and neither one is worried about competition from the likes of Safeway and Costco, they said.
“It’s just like any other business,” Eshagi said, noting that three gas stations can be in close proximity and all survive.
“There might be some decline in revenue at the beginning, but I’m pretty sure we can make it up with other products and customer loyalty and all those things.”
A spokesman for Costco, which spearheaded I-1183, could not be reached for comment Friday.
Safeway already is planning for and making room for liquor sales in its stores, corporate spokeswoman Sara Osman said Friday.
Safeway, which has two stores in Port Angeles, one in Sequim and one in Port Townsend, said the stores will sell 450 varieties of liquor, but prices have not been determined.
“We’re still working it out with the taxes and whatnot,” Osman said Friday.
Safeway isn’t worried about competition from the former state-run stores, she added.
“The same could be said about wine, but we do very well with wine sales,” Osman said.
“We are just glad to make us more of a one-stop kind of place. It will be great to offer that.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
