Provo Store Stops Selling Beer, Tobacco

Source from:  By Tad Walch Deseret Morning News Sept. 21, 2007  09/24/2007

A 9-year-old girl was the straw that broke Camel's back. And the Marlboro Man's. And Corona's. And Michelob's. Workers at Ream's Family Foods at 2250 N. University Parkway removed all the alcohol and tobacco from the grocery store's shelves Friday morning, largely because store owner Paul Ream's daughter Shyanne came home from her Payson elementary school's D.A.R.E. program and asked daddy why he sold drugs in his Provo store. That troubled Ream, who was further disturbed to learn that teenagers were sneaking alcohol out of the store by slipping beer bottles into cases of IBC root beer. So, with a nod to his store's conservative neighbors, who already appreciate his decision to keep the location closed on Sundays, Ream cleared the shelves of both Coors and Kool. "It's risky and scary," he said, "but as an independent in the neighborhood we're in, it's not as risky as it could be." The store had dedicated only 12 feet to its stock of beer and the complete supply of cigarette packs and cartons fit in a cabinet the size of those found in most kitchens. Total alcohol sales were $1,500 a month. A Ream's store in Springville, separately owned, makes $1,000 in beer sales every Sunday. "It's less than 1 percent of our business," Ream said. "But that's those products. We don't know what else those customers buy when they're here. We hope they'll still buy their groceries here and their alcohol and tobacco somewhere else." Ream's Family Foods is about three blocks west of Brigham Young University and draws large numbers of customers from student apartments and nearby residential neighborhoods filled with BYU professors and staff. "About 10 o'clock at night, the store is clear full of students," Ream said. Another area grocery store, small Day's Market in Provo's Edgemont neighborhood, stopped selling beer and cigarettes a decade ago because sales were poor. Like Ream's Family Foods, Day's Market is closed on Sunday. So is Macey's, another store in BYU's shadow, but Macey's carries alcohol and tobacco. Two Albertson's stores and a Smith's in north and central Provo are open on Sundays and carry beer and cigarettes. Ream is the grandson and namesake of Paul Ream, who launched a grocery business that expanded to more than a dozen stores around the state. Paul Ream Avenue in Provo the runs between University Avenue and Freedom Boulevard. The street was adjacent to a former Provo landmark, the Ream's turtle, a tortoise-shaped concrete building that was torn down two years ago and is being replaced by Alpine Village, a mixed-use student apartment complex. The University Parkway location owned by the younger Paul Ream is two years old, still noticeably new after the original store was gutted and rebuilt. Enditem