State Liquor Stores to Close Next Week, New Owners Hope To Open Soon In Same Locations

With private stores getting ready to enter to the liquor business in Washington, the state Liquor Control Board has released a schedule of several-dozen liquor stores that it will close next week.

The list - which covers the last remaining stores operated by the state -

The Ballinger store at 20154 Ballinger Way N.E. and Aurora North store at 18336 Aurora Ave. N. #105 are scheduled to close Wednesday, May 30.

The smallest of the stores, at 15230 Aurora Ave. N. near Joann Fabric, is slated to close May 31. 

The remaining inventory and the leases are being turned over to the new owners who purchased the exclusive rights in an auction in April to apply for liquor licenses.

The stores are exempt under the new law based on Initiative 1183 that allows only stores measuring 10,000 square feet or more to sell hard liquor.

Belay Gebreselassie of Seattle who paid $220,100 for the rights to the Aurora North store said he plans to call it Shoreline Liquor and hopes to open after June 1. 

He said he plans to have four or five employees. However, he said hidden costs are expected to drive up the costs of liquor up to 27 percent, which will passed on to consumers.

Ten percent of the increase comes from the distributors while another 17 percent is from a fee that was part of the initiative, according to Gebreselassie.

Still,

Solomon Drare of Ellensburg bought the rights to the Ballinger store for $130,100. He plans to call it Ballinger Liquor and hopes to open it soon.

"I'm ready at any time," he said. "Hopefully, by June 1st."

Ezra Genauer of Bellevue bought the rights to the Shoreline south store on Aurora Ave. N. for $97,100.

He did not immediately return a phone message from Patch Thursday, as to his plans for the store, which will be the last state-run store to close in Shoreline.