Utah liquor stores will stop accepting personal checks after Sept. 30

Shoppers will no longer be able to use personal checks at Utah’s state-owned liquor stores after Sept. 30.

The Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (DABC) recently decided to stop offering the payment method because so few checks have been written in recent years.

Signs have been posted in the 45 retail stores to give customers time to prepare, said DABC spokesman Terry Wood.

During the past 12 months, the DABC processed only 9,505 checks, totaling $506,500. The amount is minuscule compared with the $427 million in total alcohol sales for the year.

Customers who write checks also slow down the checkout process and checks require an additional expense for verification and processing, Wood said, but those were minor factors in the DABC decision.

“It‘s such a small percentage” of our overall budget, he said, noting that one liquor store only received two checks during the 2016-17 fiscal year.

Salt Lake Tribune reader Debby Zuver wrote a letter to the editor complaining about the DABC decision, saying it discriminates against senior citizens who tend to write more checks than younger consumers.

“My husband and I are senior citizens and have written checks to the liquor stores for 30 years,” Zuver wrote. “As you may have guessed, this has not set well with us.”

Instead of eliminating checks, Zuver believes the DABC should follow other retailers who convert checks into electronic payments at the register.

“If they are worried about the check not clearing the bank, this method would ensure the money is there,” she wrote. ”Are they trying to eliminate sales to a portion of the population without consulting us? I thought they worked for all of us.”

The DABC action is not unusual. Eliminating personal checks is becoming more and more common among retailers, said Troy Scott, director of business, payments and technology for Zions Bank.

He said the number of checks written nationally has been on the decline as the use of electronic payments with credit or debit cards has grown.

“Debit cards are more popular with consumers,” he said.