The City of Battle Lake is accepting applications for a Municipal Liquor Store Manager.  

Minimum qualifications: HS Diploma or equivalent, 5 years experience in sales and marketing, accounting, office management, inventory control, supervision and computing required.  

Post-secondary course work in marketing, purchasing, sales and accounting and experience in the food and beverage industry preferred.

Must complete alcohol awareness training within 6 months of employment; must meet state-mandated age requirement; must be bonded or eligible to be bonded.

Application forms and job descriptions are available at the office of the City Clerk at 108 E Main, from 9 am to 4 pm weekdays or on the city website at www.ci.battle-lake.mn.us  

Applications must be received in the City Clerk's Office by 4 pm September 29, 2014. Pay range is $18.58 to $24.24 per hour DOQ; eligible for 2015 STEP and COLA increase.

This position is eligible for benefits including health and dental insurance and retirement. 

While many small-business owners complain about burdensome government regulations, Terry Furlong welcomes them. Terry and his brother Dan own Furlong's Liquor in Oakdale.  

"I think the liquor industry does need to be regulated," Terry said. "It's a drug. I don't think you want it to be a free-for-all."  

In fact, it was regulation that attracted him and his brother to the retail liquor business in the first place.  

When Dan and Terry opened their store in 1987, a regulatory quirk gave them an edge on their competitors in neighboring North St. Paul -- two extra operating hours on weekdays.  

While state law required North St. Paul liquor stores to close at 8 p.m., Oakdale liquor stores could remain open until 10 p.m.

And Furlong's Liquor was on the right side of the border.  

"That was the real kicker," Dan said. "We were busier than anything from 8 to 10 at night."  

Terry credits those two hours with keeping them competitive during the store's early years. The advantage lasted nearly two decades, until the Minnesota Legislature changed the law in 2005.  

"I don't think I could do it the same way today," Terry said.  

Minnesota's other liquor laws have been the subject of much debate recently in the state Legislature. A high-profile proposal to lift a decades-old ban on Sunday alcohol sales was defeated during the 2014 session, and is likely to come up again in 2015.  

Minnesota is one of only 12 states with such a ban.

Another regulatory issue, allowing grocery stores to sell liquor, as many other states do, looms large. Currently, grocery stores can only sell beer with an alcohol content of 3.2 percent by volume.  

Terry and Dan have kept a close eye on these developments. They say the strict regulations level the playing field for small shops like Furlong's, which compete with big box stores like Costco and Total Wine for customers.

In the mid-1980s, Dan and Terry's mother was running a maternity store on a plot of family-owned land just east of the Oakdale-North St. Paul border.  

Terry, who had recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in finance from Bemidji State University, took over the store in 1985 when their mother moved to Arkansas. But it didn't take long for him to realize it was "not my cup of tea," he said.  

Dan was working for DHL at the time, and suggested they close the store and open a different business together at the same location.  

"We were really open to anything," Terry said.  

After doing a little research, the two men realized they were sitting on prime real estate for a liquor store.  

Before 2005, state law required liquor stores in North St. Paul to close at 8 p.m. because of the city's proximity to St. Paul, considered a Class 1 city. Oakdale was far enough from St. Paul to skirt this law. Dan and Terry decided to use this situation to their advantage.  

In early 1987, their mother told Terry to liquidate the maternity store and put the proceeds toward the liquor store. They had about $20,000. They took out a loan for another $15,000. They opened the store that March, and slowly built a customer base.  

Terry ran the store full time, while Dan kept his day job with DHL -- Dan estimates he was working 80 hours a week.  

"We didn't pay ourselves for almost two years," Dan said. "All the money we made from the store went right back into it."  

They kept their inventory simple, sticking to well-known brands they knew would sell. They couldn't afford to waste any space in the 800-square-foot store.  

"It was important for us to get brands that would turn over really quick -- not something that's going to be on the shelf for a long time," Terry said.

They expanded slowly into specialty brands and wines, soon outgrowing the former maternity store. They built a new 2,200-square-foot building behind it. Construction wrapped up about 1990.  

"On a Saturday night, we moved all the inventory from the old building into the new building," Dan said. "We were up all night. Then on Sunday, they knocked down the old building. We were open again on Monday morning."  

After that, "everything just started to click," Dan said. Soon he was able to quit DHL.  

"When we built this place, we thought, 'Oh my gosh, it's huge,' " Terry said. "But I'll tell you what, within a year, it wasn't big enough."  

In 1996, they added another 600 square feet to accommodate their growing wine selection. The store now occupies about 4,000 square feet.

After 2005, when the state changed the law restricting North St. Paul's liquor sales, "there was a slight dip" in revenue, Dan said. But it didn't take long for the business to recover.  

To set themselves apart, he and Terry have increased their focus on craft beers and imported wines.  

The two men share the responsibility of juggling their roughly 30 distributors -- three for liquor, eight for beer and more than 20 for wine.

And as demand has shifted toward locally produced beers, wines and spirits, they have also broadened their selection of these items.  

They depend on beer sales for about 45 percent of their revenue, while spirits and wine account for 35 percent and 20 percent, respectively.

But as their business has grown, so has their competition.  

When Furlong's opened, Dan and Terry competed with only two nearby stores. Now, they compete with at least three times that many -- including retail powerhouses like Costco and Total Wine.  

To keep pace with their big-box competitors, Dan and Terry have had to cut prices, narrowing their margins.  

But as they've grown, they've been able to place larger orders with suppliers, meaning they can buy at the low bulk rates their big-box competitors get.  

Both men credit Minnesota's existing alcohol sales laws with leveling the playing field. They worry that some of the proposed changes -- such as allowing grocery stores to sell liquor -- will make them less competitive.

The Sunday sales issue is particularly worrisome.  

A May 2013 survey conducted by Public Policy Polling showed 62 percent of Minnesotans believe Sunday liquor sales should be legal in the state.

Although both men acknowledge there is consumer demand for Sunday alcohol sales, they believe the push to change the law is largely driven by their big-box competitors.  

To compete, the Furlongs said, they would have to staff their store on Sundays. But they doubt it would result in additional sales.  

"It's not going to mean an increase in revenue," Terry said. "You'd just spread it out over seven days instead of six." 

Without raising prices, the only way to offset the higher cost of being open another day is to increase their sales.  

But both men say they're likely bumping up against the upper limit of what their only location will yield. They would have to expand to grow.