Gov. John Hickenlooper on Friday bit the bullet and signed a bill that will allow grocery stores in Colorado to sell full strength beer and wine for the first time since 1933, the year Prohibition was lifted and put a period mark on the era of blind tiger gin joints and bootleg empires.

Hickenlooper didn’t like Senate Bill 197 and admitted to wrestling with deciding whether to sign it or veto it or just let it become law without his signature.

The former brewpub owner sympathized with local brewers and liquor store owners whose businesses will likely suffer as chain store giants like Wal-Mart and Safeway eat into sales and begin to dictate by default which beers and wines enjoy enormous front-shelf advertising and which recede from the shopping lives of many state residents.

“Liquor store owners seem to be divided,” he said last week. “Many many liquor store owners I’ve talked to want to fight this. They think they’ll win by being the small guy challenging the big corporations from out of state – these large corporations that come into Colorado knowing what the law is… The liquor store owners have invested in many cases their life savings in their businesses knowing what the laws are. Are we gonna take away a significant part of what that liquor store owner has built up just by changing the law?”

But Hickenlooper was also realistic. Grocery corporations this year had threatened to run an expensive ballot initiative campaign, confident they could win over residents looking for the kind of shopping convenience enjoyed for decades in most states around the country.

“On the other side, this [fight] is going to happen every two years. Is it always going to be one battle after the next?”

That could be likely, despite the new law. One of the main groups opposed to the bill, Your Choice Colorado, has signaled it is ready to keep fighting.

“It is deeply disappointing that Gov. Hickenlooper signed this flawed and unconstitutional legislation that only protects a handful of big liquor stores and liquor lobbyists to become law,” wrote campaign manager Georgie Aguirre-Sacasa in a statement. “Your Choice Colorado will continue to weigh our options to keep standing by the voters, giving them the ability to make their voices heard amidst this broken system – whether through a legal challenge to this sloppy bill or as planned, taking it to the ballot in 2016. [The bill] will not stand the test of time. Colorado voters and consumers will not allow it.”

News reports had been dripping out on Friday that Hickenlooper was going to allow the bill to become law without his signature. The reports made sense, even though they ended up being wrong.

“I expected him not to sign it,” said Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, the bill sponsor. “[Hickenlooper] has been very clear he would prefer to keep the status quo – which by the way I would too. Among the things we need to address in our state, this doesn’t rank even among the top one hundred.”

Steadman said the governor signed the bill because he thought it was the best way to end the battle.

“I think he decided that [signing the bill] was the most forceful thing he could do to keep an initiative off the ballot.”

In a legislative session where big proposals repeatedly fell victim to opposing Democrat and Republican majorities in the House and Senate, this bill somehow managed to chug through intact. That is cause for celebration, Steadman said.

“This is how it’s supposed to happen. We’re talking about a complex issue, where there were legitimate multi-party interests and multi-faceted proposals on the table. There would be no end to the fighting if each interest decides year after year to go to the ballot and ask voters to weigh in on separate proposals…” That’s no way to make law, he said.

The governor had until midnight Friday to sign or to veto the bill. As the clock ticked down, members of the chattering class were placing bets. But in hindsight it seemed like signing the bill was the most likely Hickenlooper thing to do. No one involved with the bill showed any love for it anywhere along the line. That was a signal, if any were needed, that the bill was the product of genuine give-and-take negotiations. And Hickenlooper has made a very successful career in politics by arguing that that’s how elected officials should be doing business.

– john@coloradostatesman.com