Liquor store closes

PALMER -- After serving Palmer and beyond from its Arctic Avenue location for 16 years, the Liquor Station closed its doors Sunday after selling its liquor license to the Palmer Fred Meyer. Owners Sally and Larry Weiland bought the liquor store in 1986 and moved it to the Arctic location in 1988. Negotiations with Fred Meyer about the liquor license began three months ago; Larry Weiland said that when negotiations started, he didn't actually believe he and his wife would sell.

"I didn't think it would materialize, but they made us an offer we couldn't refuse," Weiland said.

When asked how much Fred Meyer paid for the Weiland's liquor license, he replied, "A lot. They paid a fair price."

The Liquor Station could no longer stock their shelves once Fred Meyer began purchasing liquor for its opening this week. The store halted liquor purchases on Feb. 19, and found out Feb. 22 that they would need to close their doors by Sunday at midnight. The shelves were bare and the cooler nearly empty as locals wandered into the store during the weekend, taking advantage of the going-out-of-business sale prices. Weiland said Fred Meyer plans to visit the closed store sometime this week, possibly buying some of the leftover merchandise that was not sold during the last days of the store's being.

"Fred Meyer has been nice to deal with, they've been pleasant," Weiland said. "They never argued about the price."

The Weilands own the building the Liquor Station is located in but at this point they haven't decided what to do with the empty space. For now they will focus on some of their other business ventures, such as the Pioneer Motel, and let the community get accustomed to the idea that one of the three liquor licenses in Palmer now belongs to Fred Meyer.

"We'd like to thank the millions of customers for being such good customers through the ups and downs of the economy," said Weiland, adding that people from as far away as Tok have stocked up at the store. "We have some really good friends out there."