Liquor store on tap in Riverton

When it comes to state-run liquor stores, Riverton city leaders have learned that you can't always just say no.

Despite a February resolution expressing the City Council's disapproval of a new liquor store in Riverton, the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control is on track to build one. The department's liquor-store commission will vote Wednesday on whether to exercise its option to buy land for the store at 12600 South and Bangerter Highway.

"This is a case where the state is just trampling on a city's rights," Mayor Bill Applegarth said Friday. "They just do whatever they want. I think that is very tragic. That bothers me far more than the issue of whether a liquor store should be here or not."

He said that while liquor stores are a state enterprise, they are also commercial in nature. No other commercial venture — a store, a restaurant, even an in-home dog groomer — could establish itself in the city without council approval.

The state alcoholic-beverage department, on the other hand, can build liquor stores wherever it wants, as long as they are in areas zoned for commercial use and are at least 600 feet from a church, school or park, according to state law.

The department's director of operations, Dennis Kellen, said Friday that a new store was needed in the southwest area of the Salt Lake Valley, and the Riverton site was chosen after the department looked at several sites.

"If the commission asked every community whether or not the community leaders wanted a liquor store located there, there probably wouldn't be very many liquor stores in the state," Kellen said. "The state is in the liquor business, and it's up to the commission to try to locate stores that are reasonably convenient."

The new store would be built as part of a shopping center planned for the site, which will be anchored by a Lowe's home-improvement store. Kellen said the center will be a draw for shoppers throughout the southwestern valley, and "it is a regional liquor store we will be putting in." The commission also considered the area's demographics and growth trends.

The state currently has only three liquor stores south of 2100 South and west of Interstate 15. There are seven in the southeast. The closest liquor stores to cities like Riverton, Herriman and South Jordan are in Sandy and Draper.