Country Market is applying for a license to sell packaged liquor at its Saline location as competition in the local grocery store market intensifies.

The move is likely to be seen as a direct response to the October opening of a Walmart superstore less than a mile east on Michigan Avenue in Pittsfield Township.

“Obviously our sales will go up significantly just from being able to sell liquor, and there’s not too many places in Saline that actually sell liquor,” said Mickey Zippay, manager of Saline’s Country Market. “It’s one of the things that we would have that Walmart wouldn’t down the street.”

Sean Kennedy, a family spokesman for Jackson-based Polly's Food Service Inc., which operates Country Market, said the company has liquor licenses at 8 of its 10 stores.

"It’s just coincidental when this happened," he said.

Walmart in mid-October opened a 177,000-square-foot superstore on Michigan Avenue in Pittsfield. The company expects $100 million in annual revenue from the store, which sells a full range of groceries.

Walmart and Busch’s, located just west of Country Market, do not sell packaged liquor at these locations. Karen Boyer, manager of Walmart’s Pittsfield Township store, said Wal-Mart has “no plans” to request a packaged liquor sales license.

Doug Busch, who handles media relations for Ann Arbor-based 15-store chain Busch’s, could not be reached for comment.

The Michigan Liquor Control Commission's approval of Country Market's application is not automatic.

Andrea Miller, a communications representative for MLCC, said the commission is expected to vote on the application within weeks.

The store is applying for an "off-premise specially designated distributor resort license." The state distributes just 10 resort SDD licenses per year, leading to "tremendous interest," according to a state document. More than 120 businesses statewide are competing for 5 of the 10 resort licenses remaining this year.

"The MLCC may grant a limited number of liquor licenses in Michigan to stimulate economic development and the tourist/convention business," the state document says. "The Commission attempts to grant licenses only to the most meritorious applicants."

Country Market's Saline location has suffered a 10 percent to 15 percent sales decline after Wal-Mart’s opening, Kennedy said.

“I am completely encouraged,” Zippay said. After a Walmart opens near an existing grocery, “they say you take 25 percent right off the bat, and you usually end up getting half that back. We didn’t even take 25 percent off the first two weeks. We’re down a little bit, but it is not anything to worry about at all.”

Kennedy said Country Market's top competitor in Saline is Busch's.

"If we could compete against Walmart we’d be somebody," Kennedy said. "We’d be Costco, I guess."

Boyer said she did not expect competition from Country Market and Busch’s to weigh down Walmart’s revenue.

“We’ve been steady since we’ve been open,” she said. “We’re here for everyday needs, and they’re a lot more specialty than we are.”

Country Market, Busch’s and Walmart already sell beer and wine at their Saline locations - which is covered under a separate license.

The Saline Area Chamber of Commerce officially endorsed the Country Market’s liquor sales application in a letter to the state. The city of Saline and the Saline Police Department also reviewed and approved the application, according to state records.

"They’re local, they’re well-respected, they’re an anchor store in a large development at Michigan and Industrial and certainly an important part of the merchant base there," said Larry Osterling, executive director of the Saline Chamber.

Osterling has argued that Walmart's entrance into the local grocery sector would not have a major impact on the Saline retail community.

"I think there’s room for everybody," he said. "We’ve got a pretty viable economically strong community. We certainly wouldn’t want to see any anchor presence anywhere create a vacuum that smaller businesses would be forced to struggling around."

Contact AnnArbor.com’s Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com. You can also follow him on Twitter.