A bill will be introduced in the next legislative session allowing grocery stores, convenience stores and big box stores to sell full-strength beer.

Your first impression might be, "Great!"

But if you think about the consequences, you'll feel differently.

This would eliminate 3.2 beer entirely, and double the amount of sale outlets. The convenience and grocery stores say they were hurt by the repeal of the blue law, but we (liquor stores) are not legally allowed to sell any food products or gas.

There are 1,600 small liquor stores in Colorado that would lose at least 30 percent of their sales. The majority will not be able to remain in business.

In Rapid City, S.D., there were 38 liquor stores prior to similar legislation. Within two years, there were only three.

Today, Pettyjohn's Liquor & Wine has not had a liquor violation in over a decade.

We pay for our employees to attend a responsible server class, we pay our employees a bounty for fake IDs, we work closely with local schools and we hire a company to "sting" us twice a month to ensure we're doing our job at carding.

The grocery and convenience outlets do not have a similar history with 3.2 beer.

Colorado enjoys one of the largest selections of wine, spirits and craft brews in the country. Today we have 108 licensed breweries, with 106 of them listed as "craft brews."

We enjoy this large selection due to the current system. The independent retailer supports these craft brews.

The big box stores have a selection process that would limit your options. The Colorado Brewers Guild, the Colorado Wine Industry Board, the Colorado Wine & Spirits Wholesalers and the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States are all opposed to this legislation.

This legislation would have a negative impact on our community: more access to alcohol, loss of jobs and loss of selection.

Wondering who's for this? Other than grocers, big box and convenience stores, there are several Anheuser-Busch and Coors independent distributorships.

Please help us preserve our reputation as the "Microbrew Capital." Call, e-mail or write your local representatives and let them know this is not what you want.

Ann R. Coppinger

Owner, Pettyjohn's Liquor & Wine, Boulder

RIGHTING THE 'PEACE TRAIN'

This responds to the column by Ron Forthofer ("Peace Train: Israeli war crimes in Gaza," Jan. 2) demanding that Israel stop its "criminal attacks" in Gaza and allow "necessities" to freely enter.

Mr. Forthofer offers as arguments an amazing array of lies to support his position. He argues that: "On Nov. 4, Israel attacked Gaza and killed six Palestinians, breaking the ceasefire that was in place for more than four months. After this attack, Hamas retaliated by firing mostly homemade rockets into Israel, injuring no one."

His lie is trivially exposed -- those rocket and mortar attacks (or at least the successful ones) are quite public and well reported.

During the so-called four-month ceasefire, there were 11 rocket attacks and 15 mortar attacks. In the single month afterwards, there were 126 rocket attacks and 71 mortar attacks.

And as for being "mostly homemade," that only means they are built in Gaza rather than imported; they are fully lethal, military rockets and mortars.

Incidentally, aside from the "homemade" ones, a variety of other rockets are used as well, including the old Soviet Katyusha rockets and their many copies, which are readily available on international markets.

Though the "homemade" rockets are quite lethal, there is better stuff than can be imported and smuggled in, which they invariably do whenever import restrictions are relaxed.

Nevertheless, the "homemade" (i.e., Palestinian-made) weapons are quite capable of demolishing a small building; and all but the earliest Qassam-1 rockets (most of those fired are Qassam-2 and -3 rockets) can demolish a large building.

Fortunately for the Israelis, they are unguided, so, like the old German V-2 rockets, while they can be generally aimed, hitting a specific target is largely a matter of luck.

The typical Hamas mortar attack employs Palestinian-made Sariya-1 mortars, which use 240 mm shells -- that's a bomb 8 inches across, two or three times the size of typical mortars in U.S. and Russian arsenals.

And, by the way, in that Nov. 4 Israeli attack, the Israelis were attacking to close a 250-meter tunnel going from Gaza and under its border. The tunnel was designed to capture additional Israeli soldiers and hold them hostage.

Six Palestinians were killed; four Israeli soldiers were wounded. This was well-reported at the time.

But Palestinians don't like any kind of Israeli military victory -- particularly one that highlights some of the more unsavory Palestinian tactics; it reduces their credibility.

Hence the resumption of intense rocket and mortar attacks.

If you object to the Israeli response, take an analogous case.

Imagine, for a moment, that some Mexican ultra-nationalists, unhappy with the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, demanded the return of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California, and were firing military rockets and mortars on a daily basis into El Paso, Los Cruces, Nogales and/or San Diego from across the border.

Imagine further that they had a lot of popular support among the border Mexican population and that they were hiding both themselves and their equipment in the homes of "civilians" to force civilian casualties if any action was taken against them.

Finally, imagine that the Mexican government was taking no effective action to stop them. Can you imagine the U.S. government "sucking it up" and letting the rocket attacks go on, year after year, to avoid civilian casualties in Mexico.

Would you want them to?

If not, why expect any gentler treatment from the Israelis?

Joel S. Davis

Albuquerque, N.M.