The last three ballot measures – all about alcohol – seeking approval for the November ballot Secretary of State have all been declared sufficient.

With those last three now included, November’s statewide ballot will have eight questions, asking for voter approval to pay for healthy meals, a reduction in the income tax rate, and whether to allow for magic mushrooms, plus the questions on alcohol.

Initiative #96 seeks voter permission to allow an equal number of licenses for drugstores, grocery stores and liquor stores.

Current law limits the number of licenses a “liquor-licensed drugstore” or “retail liquor store” can have to sell beer, wine, and spirits. The law also limits the total number of licenses that both of those licensees may obtain. Grocery stores, which currently are allowed to sell only beer, have no limits on the number of licenses they can hold.

Initiative 96 would allow a liquor store owner to expand the number of licenses – and, in effect, locations from four to seven through 2027 – and increase the number of licenses that can be obtained after that until 2037, when they could hold an unlimited number of licenses. The measure is backed by the owners of Total Wine & More, which has three locations in the metro Denver area. The company is owned by brothers Robert and David Trone; the latter is a Democratic U.S. representative from Maryland. 

The Trones and their company have so far contributed $2.2 million in cash and non-monetary contributions to the committee backing the measure, Coloradans for Consumer Choice and Retail Fairness. 

An initiative needs 124,632 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. The proponents for Initiative #96 submitted 225,400 signatures, and a random 5% sample determined 149,699 were valid. 

Initiative #121 would allow grocery stores to sell wine in addition to beer and related spirits. The backers submitted 192,017 signatures; a 5% random sample determined 142,697 were valid. 

Initiative #122 seeks approval for third-party delivery of alcohol – think Uber, Lyft or DoorDash, which has put the most money into the early stages of the campaign for its approval. Proponents submitted 185,790 signatures, of which 139,312 were determined to be valid, based on the 5% random sample.

The latter two measures are backed by two committees: Fair Delivery for All Small Businesses, which has yet to report any activity, and Wine in Grocery Stores, which has raised $3.97 million, with $1.2 million spent largely on signature gathering. DoorDash has kicked in $3.3 million so far. The measures are also backed by Safeway/Albertsons, Target, 7-Eleven and grocery delivery service Instacart.

Keeping Colorado Local, which opposes all three measures, has so far raised $$226,467 in cash and non-monetary contributions from the Colorado Licensed Beverage Association and several liquor stores.

The rest of the ballot measures voters will see in November are:

Initiative #31, which seeks to reduce the state income tax rate from 4.55% to 4.41%.

Initiative #58, which allows licensed providers to administer magic mushrooms.

Initiative #108, which asks for a portion of state income tax revenue for affordable housing programs.

Two measures were referred by the General Assembly:

House Bill 1414, known as Healthy Meals for All, provides free lunches to all public school students in Colorado. It would be paid for with a cap on the amount taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $300,000 per year could claim as deductions on their state income tax. That would affect the top 3% of all income earners.

Senate Bill 222 changes the information provided to voters on ballot measures that affect the individual income tax rate. Under the measure, the fiscal summary would include a tax information table for any citizen-initiated measure that either increases or decreases the individual income tax rate. That information would show the estimated effect of the initiative on tax owned by individuals in eight different income categories.