Editorial: Market will decide whether liquor store is needed

Talk about it

Rosemount liquor store owners made a plea to the Rosemount City Council on Tuesday. They wanted council members to reject an application from Cub Foods to open a liquor store in a vacant space next to its grocery store on County Road 42.

That’s understandable. A new liquor store means competition. And competition isn’t good for business.

Liquor store owners argued that the city council needed to put a limit on the number of liquor stores allowed to do business in Rosemount. The limit they had in mind, presumably, is exactly the number currently open in the city. But if you’re going to impose limits, why not two? Why not one? Why not zero?

In the end, it didn’t much matter whether individual council members wanted another liquor store in town. The store’s application is in order. There’s no legal reason to deny them a permit.

Competition is part of doing business. Whatever business you’re in. It’s not for the city council to decide whether the presence of one new business will harm the operations of another. If it was, Cub wouldn’t be here in the first place, and Knowlan’s would still be open in place of The Pond.

A new Cub liquor store doesn’t do much for this paper. Big stores like Cub rarely advertise in local newspapers. Rosemount’s other liquor stores have advertised. We’d like to ask the council to protect them for that, but that’s not how the free market works.

It remains to be seen just how a new liquor store will affect the others currently doing business in Rosemount. It might hurt some. It might not. We hope they can all continue to thrive. But in the end that is for the customers to decide, not the council.

Tags: opinion, cub, foods, liquor, store, rosemount