STAR, Idaho — If a local shopping joint has ever been a microcosm of the town at large, The Star Merc holds up to its namesake: the kind of place that props the front door open with a bag of dog food still for sale, a place that sells hardware and tools an aisle away from dairy products, a place where the clerk knows you by name.
The Merc is woven into the small-town fabric initially built by just a few hundred. The store is more than 100 years old.
"Gosh, I think [the population] is close to 20,000 now," owner Denise Kirtley said. "We're kinda the small-town charm."
Once a town so small, the state of Idaho found no value in owning and operating its own liquor store; three decades ago the state contracted with The Merc to shoulder that burden. However, the business treated it as an opportunity.
"They asked to lease space from us," Kirtley said. "For a bazillion years, we were the only game in town."
Though, that's changed. The State of Idaho opened a liquor store just a mile down the road. The agreement between the state and The Merc expires at the end of February. For decades, liquor has become part of The Merc's business model to success - liquor gets people in the door.
"If we don't have liquor, we will try to stay open. We will. But I'll be honest with you, I don't know if we can," Kirtley said. "March 1st, they literally could come and take it all away, I guess. I don't know what they'll do."
Idaho Speaker of the House Mike Moyle (R-Star) is working under a ticking clock to prevent the problem. He introduced House Bill 570 (H570) to protect private small-town liquor distributors established before January 1, 2023.
"It just grandfathers them in," Speaker Moyle said. "It's not just Star. It will be cities like Middleton and Emmett. There are many others as the population grows the state comes in."
The House State Affairs Committee rubber-stamped the bill sending it directly to the House floor.
"Star means as much to him as it does to us," Kirtley said. "The state is not supposed to put people out of business."
The bill has an immediacy clause; it would go into law directly after approval if it were to become law.
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