Longview Winco resists calls to remove bourbon display to prevent underage theft

Jim Beam display is legal, but small bottles are showing up at R.A. Long High School; regulators say its part of a statewide problem with liquor marketing

Longview school officials, youth sobriety advocates — and some students— are pressuring the Longview Winco to remove an easily accessible display of bourbon whiskey that they say is contributing to underage shoplifting and alcohol use.

They say the grocery store so far has resisted multiple recent requests to move hundreds of the 200 milliliter (nearly half-pint) $1.98 bottles from the end of an aisle containing paper products. 

The circumstances mirror a statewide concern about underage access to spirits that state liquor control officials want to address with new rules because it’s getting little voluntary cooperation from retailers.

R.A. Long High School officials have confiscated multiple bottles of Jim Beam they say students obtained at Winco, said Huyen Truong, county coordinator for the EPIC Coalition. 

EPIC — Empowering People & Impacting Community (EPIC) — is a state-supported nonprofit founded in 2018 through which volunteers seek to combat youth drug and alcohol abuse.

Truong and Dawn Morgan, an EPIC board member, said that EPIC, school officials and Longview police have repeatedly asked the store to move the Jim Beam bourbon to a more secure location, to little avail.  

Longview School District spokesman Rick Parrish said R.A. Long seized about a dozen bottles of spirits during this school year, he said. He did not know how many may have been obtained at Winco. 

School officials report that two R.A. Long students had to be hospitalized after over-consuming Jim Beam, but it’s unclear where and how they obtained it. Parrish said the students got intoxicated off campus and have recovered.

School officials are barred by law from identifying students in cases like this.

Mark Morris High School, which is located across 15th Avenue from Winco., did not report any liquor confiscations during this nearly completed academic year, Parrish said.

Parrish said R.A. Long students have begun a letter-writing campaign to Winco asking it to move the Jim Beam display to a more secure location.  The number of participating students and letters was not immediately available.

“They are following along with a great example to make a positive change for the health of the community,” Parrish said.

Winco corporate management has been uncooperative, Truong and Morgan said. 

Winco Director of Communications, Noah Fleisher, did not return multiple requests for comment this week.

Truong is especially worried because the most recent substance abuse surveys of high school students show that local teenage alcohol use is on a rise after declining for several years.

Teenagers’ brains are not yet fully developed and lack the inhibition needed for controlled alcohol use, Truong said.

Winco displays most of its alcoholic spirits in a staffed, easily monitored customer service room at the front of the store. 

But the hundreds of 200 milliliter bottles of Jim Beam are stacked in a cube-like, freestanding display in the middle of the paper product aisle without any special control or supervision.

The display is legal. However,  the easy access it provides to hard liquor reflects a concern opponents raised about Initiative 1183, which Washington voters passed with 60% approval in 2011. 

The Costco-backed measure, which took effect on June 1, 2012, shut down state liquor stores and made it legal to sell alcoholic spirits in hundreds of grocery stores larger than 10,000 square feet.

A State Liquor Control Board agent contacted the Longview Winco on April 30 after “it was reported to us that students are stealing these (bottles of Jim Beam) off the floor,” said Brian Smith, spokesman for the state Liquor and Cannabis Board.

At that time, the store had moved the whiskey to an area behind the liquor sales counter. However, Smith said, on June 9 the same agent, while off duty, saw the store had moved the whiskey bottles back into an “end cap in an aisle.” (An end cap is a product display at the end of an aisle.) They remained there Thursday evening and have been there at least a few weeks.

It’s unclear what the next short-term step will be because “the specific store did not appear to violate the law or (Liquor Control Board) regulations,” Smith said. 

He noted that sometimes distributors or manufacturers require specific displays.

However,  he said, the Winco situation reflects the agency’s larger concerns about liquor marketing practices statewide. 

“For more than a year, members of our board, public health partners and community members have been voicing frustration about certain alcohol product placement practices that occur in retail environments across Washington,” Smith said by email.

According to Smith, the agency is most concerned about:

• Mini-alcohol bottles located near check out or exits in barrels that make theft easy, particularly among youth.

• Cross-over products that look like popular soda, tea, or energy drink brands but contain alcohol. At some retail locations, these products are placed beside each other, typically with no clear signage or obvious labeling.

• Alcohol products that are located on end caps, in barrels within an aisle, alongside other food or drinks throughout the store, often without clear signage that the product contains alcohol. These products often are located near merchandise that is youth friendly (candy, toys, snacks tailored to youthful audiences, etc.)

“These practices make it far easier for youth to shoplift and/or manipulate self-checkout systems, but they also contribute to higher rates of impulse buying for people in recovery and store customers who weren't intending to purchase alcohol during that store visit,” Smith said by email.

The agency did not receive a single response when LCB chair Dave Postman sent a letter to all retail alcohol licensees asking them to change their practices. A second letter got only one response, Smith said. So the agency is weighing a more forceful approach.

“The agency is considering restrictions on retail alcohol displays, either through rule making or possibly legislation,” Smith said. “In the meantime, as complaints come into the agency, the Enforcement and Education Division investigates per standard procedure.”