INDIANAPOLIS – On February 20, Indiana convenience stores will have their day in court in their efforts to sell cold beer. 

The Indiana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association brought the suit against the state in federal court in May 2013, arguing that the state’s law “governing cold-beer sales violates the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by favoring one class of retailer over another,” reports the Indianapolis Business Journal.

State law in Indiana mandates that grocery and convenience stores can only sell room-temperature beer, although liquor stores can sell cold beer.

The news source writes that convenience stores “might face an uphill battle in its quest to change state law,” as they’re going up against the Indiana Beverage Alliance and the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers, as well as the state’s largest beer distributor, Monarch Beverage Co. All three have filed briefs in opposition to changing state law.

The liquor stores are arguing that the value of their permits will “decline greatly” if c-stores are allowed to sell cold beer. The news source notes that liquor stores pay more for a liquor dealer’s permit — between $144,000 and $475,000 — than grocery and convenience stores, which pay about $6,000, and are held to stricter regulations.

“Plaintiffs desperately want to sell more beer,” the Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers said in its filing. “But that does not justify eliminating a long-standing state policy decision on how to balance competing public interests in making beverage alcohol available, yet not so available as to stimulate its overconsumption and abuse.”

The Indiana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association filed its suit against the state after previous attempts to change the law “fell on deaf ears,” John Maley, a partner at Barnes & Thornburg LLP, the firm representing the convenience stores, told the news source.