Provo store drops alcohol, smokes

PROVO — A 9-year-old girl was the straw that broke Camel's back.

And the Marlboro Man's. She did in Corona and Michelob, too.

Workers at Ream's Family Foods at 2250 N. University Parkway removed all the alcohol and tobacco from the grocery store's shelves Friday morning, largely because store owner Paul Ream's daughter Shyanne came home from her Payson elementary school's D.A.R.E. program and asked Daddy why he sold drugs in his Provo store.

That troubled Ream, who was further disturbed to learn that teenagers were sneaking alcohol out of the store by slipping beer bottles into cases of IBC root beer.

So, with a nod to his store's conservative neighbors, who already appreciate his decision to keep the location closed on Sundays, Ream cleared the shelves of Coors and Kool.

"It's risky and scary," he said, "but as an independent in the neighborhood we're in, it's not as risky as it could be."

The store doesn't rely on revenue from alcohol and cigarettes. It had dedicated 12 feet of space to its stock of beer and alcohol. The complete supply of cigarette packs and cartons fit into a cabinet the size of those found in most kitchens.

Total alcohol sales were $1,500 a month. A Ream's store in Springville, separately owned, makes $1,000 in beer sales every Sunday. The other Ream's location in Provo, on Center Street, is also owned separately and will continue to sell alcohol and tobacco.

"It's less than 1 percent of our business," Ream said of his store. "But that's those products. We don't know what else those customers buy when they're here. We hope they'll still buy their groceries here and their alcohol and tobacco somewhere else."

Ream's Family Foods is about three blocks west of Brigham Young University and draws large numbers of customers from student apartments and nearby residential neighborhoods filled with BYU professors and staff.

"About 10 o'clock at night, the store is clear full of students," Ream said.

Ream's decision pleased several customers.

"I think it's fantastic," Kristin Ward said. "It can't be good enough. There aren't words to describe it. The less available those things are, the better, and that's not just my religion. They're unhealthy."

Others weren't bothered by the move.

"It doesn't matter to me," said one woman who declined to give her name. "When I want something, I go to the state liquor store."

Outside the state liquor store in downtown Provo, Nanette Lassen felt the same.

"It's up to the store owner," she said. "If people still want to drink beer, they can go other places. I don't have any animosity toward (Ream's)."

Another area grocery store, Day's Market in Provo's Edgemont neighborhood, stopped selling beer and cigarettes a decade ago because sales were poor.