I see a lot of liquor stores around. I do not think I have ever been in one. Why are there so many of them? The grocery stores I stop at all have massive liquor sections. With what I estimate to about 30-40 kinds of beer and aisles of hard liquor. Are the prices at a liquor store cheaper than a grocery store? Do they have better selection? All the signs on the windows look to be for stuff that they have at the grocery store and the prices seem about the same. Grocery stores usually have a crap selection of wine, but I have never thought of going to the corner liquor store to buy wine. I just go to a wine shop.
Except for Ireland, I’ve never been in a grocery store that sold hard liquor, only beer and wine and mixers for the non-existent spirits. Where are you?
Outside Chicago. Things I know they have Jack Daniels, Grey Goose, Absolut, Johnnie Walker. Actually I going to stop there. They have a lot more. Shelves of it.
In the United States, Arizona and California sell hard liquor in the grocery store. I believe Nevada does as well, but I’m not 100% sure.
I’ve lived in New Mexico, Missouri, and Hawaii, and all had grocery stores with extensive hard liquor sections. The Sun Fresh Grocery store down the street from me carries at least 40 types of vodka alone. Cheap to super-premium.
Short answer: because people go to them.
What other possible reason on earth could there be?!? This should be in GQ and done already.
Makes no sense to me. The only reason I could surmise is that maybe the wine selection is greater? But yeah, living in a place where liquor can only be bought in liquor stores, I don’t understand.
Most grocery stores don’t have liquor sections that are as big as a liquor store. Also the prices may often be higher than a liquor store’s.
Also there is convenience. Oft times it is way easier to stop at a liquor store.
Here, you can’t buy liquor or wine or anything but 3.2 beer in a grocery store.
I don’t drink much any more, but from what I recall from my drinking days liquor stores tend to have a wider selection than grocery stores. They’re more likely to carry less popular or higher quality brands, since the grocery stores are more likely to carry liquor as a convenience to their customers.
Of course, it may also depend on local liquor regulations. Here in NC, grocery stores can only sell beer and wine; all harder liquor must be sold in ABC stores.
Or you could live in a place that doesn’t allow grocery stores to sell all booze at all. Liquor stores are a must around here.
Liquor stores exist because there is a market for them. There are so many of them because the market for them is strong.
The liquor laws here in Texas are bizarre and highly localized. Some places are totally dry. Some only allow the sale of beer and wine. Some allow grocery stores to sell beer and wine, but only allow the sale of liquor in dedicated liquor stores.
There’s actually one little “town” nearby that refused to be annexed as another suburb town grew around it. Now, there’s no way to tell where it ends and the other begins–except that it consists almost entirely of liquor stores, because town that surrounds it is dry.
In BC until a few years ago, you could only buy liquor at government liquor stores. Then the government allowed ‘beer and wine’ stores. Now we have private liquor stores, just like I’d experienced in the states. For me, it was as weird seeing something like “Joe-Bob’s House o’ Booze” in Washington as it must have been for Americans to come to BC and see official BC Government liquor stores. That were, of course, closed on Sunday. 
I still buy booze at the government store. The one in my area is a “signature store” which is large and well-stocked, one of two such larger stores in Victoria. I have popped into a private liquor store that was near the grocery store I’d just been in, but the price of what I was looking for was higher than I knew was at the government store, so I walked out again. Once in a blue moon, I’ll buy a bottle of wine or some beer at a, heh, beer and wine store, but again, I find prices to be higher, selections much smaller, and unless it’s 11:30 p.m. and I desperately need booze*, there’s little point.
*This generally is not a common occurrence in my life. Really.
In Minnesota you can only by 3.2 beer in grocery stores. When I lived in North Dakota, you couldn’t even get that.
I would guess that even in areas where you can get booze in the supermarket, liquor stores still have a wider selection – deeper selections of imported beers and microbrews, a better range of wines wuth some more high end selections, etc.
There are some that actually do have cheap deals for winos and alcoholics. Two dollar bottles of fortified wine, single cans of beer and the like.
In Michigan grocery stores can sell all types of liquor. In Minnesota and Colorado they can’t.
God Bless California! My local Stater Bros. grocery has a bigger selection of booze than any liquor store in town. I’d have to drive 15 miles to the nearest Bevmo to find a larger selection. Staters has a better beer selection than the liquor stores as well.
In PA, wine and hard liquor are sold by the state in state-owned liquor stores. Wineries are allowed to sell their products directly to consumers, however.
Beer is sold by the six-pack at bars, which may limit you to one or two six-packs. Cases and kegs are sold at beer distributors, which are not allowed to sell beer in anything smaller than cases.
The best we can hope for is a liquor store close to a supermarket, although some stores have opened in supermarkets as a test.
The system isn’t likely to change any time soon because there are too many entrenched interests and there isn’t a drinkers’-rights organization to demand change.
Robin
No, first you burning our dog, then you going to stop there.
I live in Michigan, and buy my liquor, beer and wine from both a liquor store, and the major grocery stores. It just depends on if I so happen to be buying groceries and want some booze, or if I’m having people over and just need to stock up on extra drinks. It’s all about convenience more than anything else. Why stop at a megastore and have to walk down countless aisles and wait through long lines just to pick up a six pack, or a bottle of vodka, when right at the corner is a small store with an arguably wider selection?