Did you know that 42 states allow full-strength beer or wine to be sold in their grocery stores? And of the eight that don’t, only five still sell 3.2 beer – or, as it’s more commonly known, near beer?

Colorado unfortunately occupies the ignominious space of only allowing “near beer” in grocery stores, along with states like Kansas and Oklahoma.

No offense to the fine citizens of those states, but Colorado beer puts their swill to shame. We have some of the greatest suds on the planet right here in Colorado, and it is time we allow our residents to buy it where they also shop for Palisade peaches, Rocky Ford melons and San Luis Valley potatoes.

While most of America has the opportunity to pick up Colorado craft beer in grocery stores, the citizens of the very state where it is brewed are prohibited from doing so.

Not all readers of this article are forced to suffer under our out-of-date liquor laws. There are a lucky few who happen to live near the one grocery store per chain in the state that has a liquor license. Those include Whole Foods patrons in Boulder, King Soopers customers in Glendale and Safeway shoppers in Littleton. But for most of us in the Denver metro area, and every Colorado resident outside of it, we aren’t allowed the same choice and convenience afforded to that select few.

If 42 states allow beer or wine in their grocery stores, and there are already a few grocery stores in Colorado that sell full-strength beer and wine, why haven’t we changed our laws? Attempts at reform have been shut down by special interests in the Legislature for years, but that is about to change.

A statewide coalition of consumers and community leaders across Colorado is forming to challenge the broken status quo and bring competition, choice and convenience to customers across the state.

In the coming months, you will hear claims that allowing grocery stores to sell real beer and wine will lead to the immediate collapse of every liquor store in Colorado. It’s not true, and you need not look farther than Colorado to prove it.

In Glendale, both King Soopers and Target sell beer, wine and liquor, and yet there are almost 80 liquor stores within a two-mile radius. Clearly, selling beer and wine in grocery stores has not hampered liquor stores’ ability to compete and thrive there.

In fact, of the five cities in America with the most liquor stores per capita, four of them allow beer and wine to be sold in grocery stores. Denver, the fifth, is the only one that currently prohibits it.

Liquor stores have flourished wherever grocery stores are also allowed to sell real beer and wine.

Choice and competition will lower prices for consumers while driving liquor stores to improve their selection and customer service.

Reforming our out-of-date and antiquated liquor laws will benefit consumers and craft breweries, who can get their beer to a much wider audience, and help families strapped for time by having to make one less stop during their errands.

John Brackney is a former Arapahoe County commissioner and CEO of the South Metro Denver Chamber.