Gail Stanton has been cutting hair in Granger for the past 23 years. She says “a good haircut is still nine dollars.” What is unique about this barber shop is it also has a liquor store. Photo by Adam Smith

By Adam Smith
GRANGER - Over the past 23 years Gail Stanton has made a living in her Granger store selling a service, and a commodity, that most everyone in the community needs, or procures, at least from time to time.

Stanton’s is the local barbershop, as most folks that reside around the Toppenish/Granger I-82 corridor are aware, but the quaint glass front shop also doubles as a contracted state liquor store outlet.

It has been that way since 1988 when she moved down the street in Granger to her current location. The next closest liquor store is in Zillah, and is run by the state.

Stanton’s customers for both haircuts and spirits come from throughout the area, and are not just local to the immediate neighborhood of Granger. Haircuts, good ones, “are still nine dollars” Stanton says, “but the booze is whatever the state sets the price at, and there is, of course, a five dollar charge for whining.”

Liquor prices, and the fact that Washington has the highest alcohol tax in the U.S. concerns contract liquor stores like Stanton’s Barbershop more acutely than state liquor store outlets which are set to close on May 31st of this year. At some point, if prices on alcohol continue to  climb consumers could likely change their habits.

Initiative 1185 approved by voters last year will take the state of Washington out of the business of selling alcohol and will privatize the industry. There are indications the expense of buying booze will continue to rise. The initiative, authored by the Costco Corporation, did make a provision to impose a  10 per-cent distributor fee, and a 17 per-cent additional surcharge for retailers getting into the business of alcohol sales that will be obviously be passed on to consumers.

At some point, if unabated, rising prices will likely diminish demand. The 27 per-cent total cost adjustment was a provision in the initiative to mitigate the impacts of lost revenue to the state. But those additional fees are just now beginning to come into the sites of consumers. Most people agreed the State of Washington would be better off leaving the business of selling alcohol to the retail industry, but the additional cost, borne by the fact that consumers will be forced to compensate the state for lost revenues with additional surcharges built into the newly privatized system,  was overlooked by many supporters of the bill.

Contract liquor stores like Stanton’s Barbershop have historically been paid a 22 per-cent commission, which can taper  down on a sliding scale if a certain volume of sales are made. The commission schedule and the uncertainty of how de-regulating the enterprise of selling alcohol to the public is why Stanton herself did not vote in favor of 1182  last year. “It wasn’t clear what it would mean to contract liquor stores if the initiative passed,” she said. “Half my entire business is from alcohol sales. The state didn’t make clear what would happen if voters passed to take alcohol sales out of the state’s hands.”

Now it looks as though Stanton’s business of haircuts and alcohol sales will basically stay the course as contract stores like hers are basically grandfathered in. There are several thousand applications in Olympia for new licenses to sell hard alcohol at retail outlets of more than ten thousand square feet, but contractors like Stanton have now been deemed safe by the Washington State Liquor control authority. “I do have to submit an application and pay a $300 fee, but it now looks like everything will remain pretty much the same.” , she said.