Many jurisdictions in Nevada expanded alcohol delivery privileges during the early stages of the pandemic to liquor stores and restaurants on a temporary basis.
Having alcohol delivered to your front door was well-received, paving the way for lawmakers during the 2021 Nevada Legislature to pass Senate Bill 307. The bill, signed into law by Gov. Steve Sisolak, allows for liquor retailers and third-party services—like Instacart or Grubhub—to make deliveries.
Stipulations for the legislation—such as a minimum age requirement for delivery drivers and a requirement of the purchaser to show proof they are at least 21—were released on September 1 by the state’s Department of Taxation, which is charged with defining the regulations.
Ryan Saxe, an attorney with local firm Saltzman Mugan Dushoff, has been working with a number of national brands, including Instacart and Whole Foods Market, a subsidiary of Amazon, that want to see a retail-friendly code for liquor delivery in Nevada established.
“Our clients are trying to meet their customers’ demands,” Saxe said. “Customers in Nevada are looking at their friends and family in other states around the country who are able to get alcohol included in their deliveries and they’re wanting that convenience, too.”
In a metropolitan area with multiple municipalities and even jurisdictions within jurisdictions—like unincorporated Clark County—it can be confusing to decipher exactly what the rules are.
In a March letter sent to the Department of Taxation, Shellie Hughes of Whole Foods expressed that concern, calling it an “undue hardship” for retailers.
“It appears that deliveries must both originate from and end in the locality where the premises are licensed,” Hughes wrote. “To illustrate, a Whole Foods Market licensed in Henderson would be unable to complete a delivery in unincorporated Clark County, a few short miles from the premises.”
Throw in the fact that Las Vegas welcomes tens of millions of visitors annually—many staying in hotels at the resorts that dot the Strip—and the issue is made even more complicated.
Virginia Valentine, president and CEO of the Nevada Resort Association, which represents Southern Nevada’s casino resort businesses, said the organization “supported temporary deliveries of alcoholic beverages to residential homes and certain commercial locations during the pandemic as a way of assisting small businesses and residents who did not feel safe venturing out.”
Valentine said the association believes delivery to homes is reasonable, but she said liquor delivery to resorts can cause problems, such as weakening safeguards against underage drinking at hotels and other possible security issues. The law, as it stands, does not prohibit delivery to resorts.
“Policing liquor deliveries would be challenging for resort security teams and would divert them from other areas of crime prevention,” Valentine said. “Deliveries would also exacerbate traffic congestion in the resort corridor.”
She said a uniformed allowance of liquor delivery along the resort corridor—generally thought of as the south side of the Strip up through Downtown Las Vegas—would also “undermine” the value of liquor licenses held by the resorts and their business partners.
“We believe deliveries should not be allowed to resorts with nonrestricted gaming licenses,” Valentine said.
Saxe said consumers were interested in the concept of liquor and grocery delivery before the pandemic, but the pandemic would come to “supercharge” some of those expectations.
“A lot of these local jurisdictions created these limited privileges of delivery during the pandemic and customers got used to that,” Saxe said. “Now, those privileges have expired, but customers are still calling businesses asking for delivery.”
In the interim, each jurisdiction operates independently.
In the city of Las Vegas, a business that holds a liquor license is allowed to apply for a special “internet sales license” that green lights delivery with some restrictions.
A city spokesman said in an email that only a small handful of businesses in Las Vegas have that license. That list includes Total Wine liquor stores, Chili’s and BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse.
To date, the city has not licensed any of the third-party services.
Under Clark County code, only a grocery store is allowed to deliver liquor. In Henderson, according to a city spokeswoman, the same is true.
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