Summit County and Utah County residents will have less time for purchasing their beer, wine, alcoholic beverages, libations, strong drink ingredients and/or spirits, starting tomorrow. All state liquor stores starting Thursday, will open at noon and close at 7:00 PM from 3/19/2020 - 4/1/2020.
According to the DABC these new hours are due to staffing shortages during the COVID-19 restrictions and will be reevaluat at the end of this two week period. They also stated that no DABC employee has tested positive for COVID-19 at this time.
The new hours were announced after the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (DABC) closed many of the state liquor stores including all of those in Summit County and Wasatch County, following the earthquake (M 2.8 - 5km NE of Magna, Utah) that occurred Wednesday morning.
Full DABC Statement:
Utah State Liquor Stores from Logan to Draper and from Heber City to Tooele will be closed all day today in order to check for structural damage due to this mornings 5.7 earthquake and following aftershocks. Several stores did experience broken bottles falling from the shelves and racks, but any store in the earthquake zone described above will be closed until DCFM inspectors can guarantee its safety. Stores in Utah County, Vernal, Moab, Price, Cedar City, Hurricane and St. George will remain open at normal hours. The DABC warehouse is closed today due to broken bottles and a broken sprinkler line. No injuries have been reported by DABC employees. Beginning tomorrorw, March 19, 2020 and continuing for two weeks, all Utah State Liquor Stores will maintain shorter hours, opening at noon and closing at 7pm. This is due to staff shortages during the COVID-19 restrictions. These store hours will be re-evaluated at the end of the two week period. No DABC employee has tested positive for the disease at this time. Should a store employee test positive, that store will be shut down, employees sent home to quarantine, and the store sanitized so it can be reopened as soon as possible. All DABC stores are practicing "Social Distancing" during the outbreak. That means stores will limit the number of customers inside in order to maintain safe distances from each other...six feet. The number of people allowed inside and in lines will vary from store to store depending on the size of the store. It will be the store managers judgement of the safe number of customers allowed inside. Customers should be aware they may be asked to remain outside briefly. We ask cooperation and understanding from all. Customers are being encouraged to use credit cards for purchases and discouraged from using cash. These are Department of Health guidelines. Store clerks will wear sanitary gloves and sanitize the checkout area after each transaction. Updates will be provided to you as they warrant. These restrictions, limitations and procedures are subject to change at any time.
Full DABC Statement: