Lakeville Liquor leads statewide municipal liquor store sales in 2017

LAKEVILLE, Minn. (KMSP) - Lakeville Liquor is one of nearly 200 municipal liquor stores across the state and according to the state auditor, in 2017, the shop generated more than $14 million in sales.

That’s more than any municipal liquor store in Minnesota.

“We’re very lucky. We have a community that supports us. We have great staf,” said Brenda Visnovec, Liquor Operations Director in Lakeville.

According to the auditor’s report, Edina came in second racking up more than $10 million in sales followed by Richfield, Eden Prairie and Apple Valley.

Sunday sales, which took effect last year may be a contributing factor for the record year of sales, but that wasn’t the case for Lakeville.

“Not in our circumstance. It may have in pockets. I’ve heard of pockets that are doing well with it, but we saw only an increase of 0.9 percent sales increase, and when you take the cost of labor, it really didn’t pay out,” Visnovec said.

Profits, however, are on the rise.

Lakeville Liquor produces nearly $1 million annually, which is money that goes back to the city.

“That’s the best thing to all of this,” Visnovec said. “We have put a quarter of $1 million into an ice arena, we purchased land for the public library. We put $1.2 million into a local park with trees and infrastructure. We’re paying off the debt service of the police department. We paid off all debt of a fire station, and it goes on and on. And we couldn’t have done that without this. This would have directly gone back onto the taxpayers without it.”