The state fiscal year ends June 30th, and one state agency is guaranteed to be busy right up to that date. Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division Chief Deputy Administrator, Rick Swizdor, says the way the calendar set up last year for the Fourth of July holiday, they sold $4.5 million dollars in alcohol in the last three days of June.
The Fourth of July is on a Monday this year, which will make things busy again. Swizdor says they’d rather not have to deliver two-million dollars of product in one day, because it can be stressful. But, he says they are better able to handle it this year after planning for last year, and he expects 3 to 4 million dollars in orders for the last three days of June.
Another factor in the late June rush is the rules will change for convenience stores on July 1st, making it easier for them to sell liquor. Swizdor says it still looks like around 200 convenience stores will take advantage of the new liquor sales law — which means additional orders to stock their inventory.
He expects a big surge of orders in July and into August as the stores come on-line and then he says it will be a marginal growth from there. Swizdor says the long term impact on liquor sales from the convenience stores is not known. He says some of the change will be a shifting of business among stores.
Swizdor says beer sales might be affected, and he says if there is a convenience store that is closer to where someone is drinking alcohol, it might be easier for them to go there than to the grocery store or liquor store to buy the alcohol. Swizdor expects state liquor sales to finish the fiscal year in June up around four to 4.5%.