Enter Barry Karimi's liquor store in Lake Oswego and you're treated to a sparkling assortment of some 1,500 choices, anything from your basic fifth of Jack Daniels to locally made pear brandy with a full-sized pear grown inside the bottle.

But if you want a Bud chaser with that Jack, or perhaps a mid-range merlot before the brandy, sorry. Try the Albertson's a few blocks south. Oregon's Prohibition-era rules prohibit most state liquor stores from selling beer and wine alongside the harder stuff.

Those rules may be in for some changes soon -- changes that would revolutionize the way Oregonians buy booze.

"You go into some liquor stores and it's like going back 40 years," says Karimi, who has been in the business since the mid-1990s. Loosening the tightly controlled climate of liquor sales, he says, "will give us a chance to modernize."

The

, which regulates all sales of distilled spirits in the state, is proposing two significant rule changes. One would allow far more liquor stores to become "non-exclusive," meaning they would be allowed to expand into beer and wine sales.

The other, which could have even broader consequences, would allow corporations to become liquor agents. The idea is to make it easier for big grocery chains, such as Safeway or Fred Meyer, to open "store within a store" liquor outlets. Buy the cantaloupe in the produce section, then head over to a separate area for the vodka or gin to make

.

"We're trying to achieve a couple of things," says Merle Lindsey, OLCC deputy director. "We want larger stores. We want consumers to have more products to choose from. We want a great customer experience."

Lindsey says the changes wouldn't lead to a sudden proliferation of new places to buy liquor, or to a sudden increase in stores that sell wine and beer as well as liquor. The OLCC would decide on a case-by-case basis who gets a liquor sales license and which agents get to add wine and beer sales.

"We're still looking at this from the control model," he says.

The proposed rule changes go before the five-member commission in March -- giving the Legislature a chance to weigh in when it meets in February. The proposals come on the heels of a ballot measure in Washington where voters approved a privatization plan that ends the state's monopoly and allows liquor sales at Costco and other big grocery stores.

Liquor officials, and Gov. John Kitzhaber, hope to avoid a similar public revolt against Oregon's system. Kitzhaber "would be supportive of efforts to modernize and improve customer service and choice," said his spokesman, Tim Raphael, although the governor has yet to be briefed on the details of the proposed rule changes.

Critics of the looser rules include convenience store owners, who worry about losing business, and big grocers, who say the changes don't go far enough.

"The idea that liquor stores should have beer and wine, in our view, is an admission by the OLCC that it's time to change the system," says Joe Gilliam, a lobbyist who represents

"If you allow beer and wine at liquor stores, then allow liquor at grocery stores."

Gilliam says the OLCC is "trying to do it half-way" by choosing which stores would be allowed to offer liquor. Anything short of a broad expansion, he says, "probably lights the fuse for an initiative campaign."

Lindsey says the proposed changes are aimed at consumers more than business owners. State-licensed liquor stores have a reputation as being small, hard to find and less than hospitable to the modern shopper, he says. But agents who want to expand, add new shelving or install better lighting often don't have the money. The addition of beer and wine sales would give them the extra revenue to modernize, he says.

Karimi, the Lake Oswego liquor agent, agrees, saying he feels hampered by his 3,000 square feet.

"Yes, I'd like to have 6,000 square feet. I'd love it," he says. "Can I afford it? That's a different question."

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