Arizona: Beer and wine at a Dollar store near you

(AZCentral) - Forget the grocery store or gas station. Metro Phoenix residents can now grab some wine or beer at the dollar store.

Dollar General and 99 Cents Only stores across the state have recently added alcohol to their offerings of discount items, though it will probably cost shoppers more than a buck.

There are about 70 stores from these two chains that have applied for or received a liquor license in Arizona, all since March, according to the Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control.

The discount chains have been gradually bringing beer and wine to their shelves across the country, with Arizona being the most recent state, store representatives said.

“We want to be a convenient store,” said Manuel Becerra, district manager for 99 Cents Only. “You come to the store and you find everything you need.”

Beer and wine is now available in about a third of Arizona Dollar General stores, said Crystal Ghassemi, a company spokeswoman.

“It’s a product mix that we added to our stores based on customer demand,” Ghassemi said. “We know that our customers vote with their wallets.”

Wine at 99 Cents Only stores is among the few items sold for more than the store’s name suggests, Becerra said, though some stores may offer single bottles of beer for 99 cents. At Dollar General, only about a quarter of the merchandise is priced under a dollar, Ghassemi said. A Mesa store offered wine bottles for $4 and up and six- and 12-packs of domestic beer.

Diane Carter tried one of the $2.99 bottles of wine at the 99 Cents Only store in Tempe and found that she preferred it for cooking over drinking.

“Wine can get expensive for cooking,” she said.

There are about six dollar discount stores in Mesa, three in Glendale and two in Chandler and Gilbert that have applied for or received a license to sell beer and wine.