County OK's full-strength beer sales at Hughes

Larimer County commissioners on Tuesday gave their blessing to a plan that on paper will allow Colorado State University’s concessionaire at Hughes Stadium to sell all types of liquor throughout the stadium.

In reality, CSU athletic director Joe Parker told commissioners, the only change will be vending “regular” beer rather than 3.2 beer. The difference opens the door for sales of craft beer during Hughes' final season, or at least the sale of full-strength versions of domestic beers that Colorado law limits to 3.2 percent alcohol by volume for sale in grocery stores.

“We have a desire to move away from 3.2 beer and have regular beer at the stadium,” said Parker, who addressed the commissioners after signing up to make community comment. “(Some) are concerned that we’re going to move to spirits or liquor, and I just wanted to make it clear that that’s not the case. This is just to put us in a position to have regular beer at the stadium.”

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The change, called a modification of premises, was on the commissioners’ consent agenda, with all three commissioners voting in favor.

Before the vote, commissioner Steve Johnson said he’d spoken with local law enforcement about the proposal.

“I reached out to Sheriff (Justin) Smith and the Fort Collins police chief to ask if they had any concerns, and both of them responded that they did not,” Johnson said. “Chief (John) Hutto said the concern they had was the tailgating in the parking lot before the games."

Hughes Stadium falls under Larimer County’s jurisdiction, while CSU's new on-campus stadium, scheduled to open in 2017, is under the jurisdiction of Fort Collins Police Services.

Parker reiterated that he isn’t aware of any interim step in the licensing process, through which CSU could sell regular beer on the concourse level, without getting the approval for hard liquor as well. Wine and spirits were already available in the stadium's club and suite areas.

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Karla Lewis, general manager of Ovations, said the concessionaire would abide by CSU’s wishes.

“We serve on behalf of CSU athletics … so we’re definitely going to follow the direction that CSU athletics has put down — which is that we’ll just be serving the (regular) beer on our concourse,” she said. “It’s a small percentage difference from what we’re serving now.”

Both Parker and Lewis said that including local breweries’ products at Hughes isn't yet under consideration.

“It could potentially open up the flavors that we sell,” Lewis said. “But that hasn’t been discussed yet.”

Beers at Hughes have been sold for $6, $7 and $8 for 16 ounces, 20 ounces and 24 ounces, respectively, Lewis said. Any price change, she said, hasn’t been discussed.

“That hasn’t been addressed,” Lewis said. “We haven’t had price increases in years.”

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Lewis said nonprofit groups will continue to sell beer at Hughes Stadium.

“We always use nonprofit organizations,” Lewis said. “It gives straight back to the community. They get a percentage of the sales and we don’t have to deal with a full-payroll task force. All of our nonprofit organizations — anyone who is going to be touching beer — go through an extensive alcohol certification that I teach every year. And that will continue.”

Parker said that the timing of the change, for the final year at Hughes before the football team's move to the on-campus stadium, isn’t tied to the impending relocation.

“I don’t know how much influence (one year of precedence) would have because it’s two separate jurisdictions,” Parker said. “We thought about (applying to sell regular beer) last year and just got a little bit of a late start on it and couldn’t make the application.”