Liquor to be sold in Winnipeg grocery store

A Winnipeg Safeway store will be the test-site for the province's first Express store selling liquor in a major grocery store.

The province's liquor control agency is planning a total of five such outlets in grocery stores. Another five Express stores will go in other settings.

The first, expected to be open this fall, will be in the Pembina Village Safeway on Pembina Highway.

Customers out at the Safeway today seemed to like the idea.

"I think it should be OK," Mike Pringle, a shopper in the store Friday, told CBC News. "I mean it's not going to mean buying more wine or beer. It's just more of a convenience."

Another Safeway customer, Jan Pallick, agreed.

"More convenient," Pallick said. "It's not that I buy a lot but it's more convenient."

The Express store is expected to be open later this summer.

"[The] stores will allow the public to shop for groceries and alcohol in one location, while ensuring these products continue to be sold in a socially responsible manner," Jim Rondeau, the minister responsible for the Liquor Control Act said in a new release Friday.

According to the government the store will offer about 400 of the top selling wines, spirits and beer.

An official from Safeway said the company has a lot of experience selling alcohol in stores across North America.

The government noted that Manitoba Liquor Control employees will operate and staff the Express store.

It will be an area within the Pembina Highway Safeway store, formerly occupied by a bank.

The first Liquor Mart Express was opened at Winnipeg's airport in late 2011.