We don’t yet know all the faces behind the winners of last Friday’s online auction for the state’s liquor stores—or, more specifically, the rights to apply for a license to sell liquor in the soon-to-be-former state stores—but the Washington State Liquor Control Board just sent out a press release with the basic results.
We do know that the stores were sold off to individual bidders instead of one big bidder for all the stores. (The auction offered a buy-all-stores option to any bidder who singlehandedly outbid all of the high bids for individual stores.) According to the press release: “The sum of individual bids exceeded the $4.6 million all-store high bid by a nearly 7:1 ratio.” (Sorry, “Dumb Dick.”)
Some other details:
Total sum of individual bids: $30.75 million
High all-store bid: $4.6 million (will not count)
Registered bidders: 551
Total number of bids: 14,627
Single stores to individuals: 93
Multiple stores to individuals: 28
Lowest winning bid: $49,600 for Store 186 in Spokane (Division street)
Highest winning bid: $750,100 for Store 122 in Tacoma (72nd and Pacific)
Increase in bids on final day: $23.7 million
