Casey Harris can tell you a thing or two about the difficulty of obtaining a liquor license. So, too, can Bob Callaway.
Though separated by time zones and some 1700 miles—Harris calling Port Huron, MI home and Callaway residing in Smithfield, UT—the two have traveled a similar path in pursuing their respective liquor licenses, one littered with frustration, disappointment, and bureaucratic noise.
Open since February 2006, Harris and his Casey’s Pizza and Sub Shop, a 100-seat establishment along the lake town’s evolving business district, have yet to pour a pint of ale or drop of wine. Though Harris called to get his liquor license the day after purchasing the former office building in late 2005, his journey to serving a pitcher of Budweiser has been anything but smooth.
“It’s taken two years to get my liquor license and I’m just now getting close,” says Harris, a retired hockey player who spent much of his youth in his parent’s Carmel, IN pizzeria. “I’ve been writing letters, making calls, and am constantly going to meetings. It’s disheartening how long it’s taken—not to mention the costs.”
For Callaway, who ran a catering service in southern California, his move to Smithfield, a modest spot of 7,500 inhabitants hugging the college town of Logan, and subsequent quest for a restaurant liquor license was similarly one of difficulty and distress.
Accustomed to California’s application process, Callaway encountered a different set of rules in Smithfield, a town with liquor regulations well beyond the state’s strict code. He could not purchase another’s vacated license, as one could in California, and was forced to petition the Smithfield City Council for a variance, a series of public hearings and forums to determine if Callaway’s Bistro faced “difficulties or hardships” given its inability to serve alcohol.
“I was going after the first restaurant liquor license in this conservative town,” says Callaway, “and I had to send letters out to everyone within an eight block radius. One dissenting council member said he’d be appalled to have his children walk home from school and pass a place serving alcohol. Such was the battle I faced.”
As it turns out, Harris’ and Callaway’s experiences are not uncommon. Operators across the country often find obtaining a liquor license to be a more challenging feat than anticipated. While liquor licenses once ran exclusively through the state, local municipalities sought increased say in the licenses granted within their communities. Zoning, as Jon Mejia of the California-based American Liquor License Exchange explains, has now lengthened, complicated, and overpriced the process.
“The local guys wanted their say and that’s placed an increased burden on the independent operator,” says Mejia, who notes Los Angeles where operators face a $6,000 price tag just to have their day in front of the zoning department—a first-step plea for a subsequent chance to deliver more paperwork, more cash, and more appeals.
While each state and municipality maintains its own set of regulations, Mejia, a two-decades long veteran of liquor licensing issues, offers a few general principles to move the process forward as efficiently as possible.
Two of the most overlooked items in applying for a license are parking, particularly in cities, and handicap accessibility, both of which demand an operator’s attention to detail and local code.
“These are true almost across the country,” Mejia says, “and are perhaps the critical items which most trip up operators. Don’t have them and you’ll likely run into a problem trying to get the liquor license.”
In an ideal world, says Mejia, the pizzeria would stand far away from residential units and so-called sensitive use facilities, such as churches, schools, parks, and hospitals. But since that leaves little else, Mejia urges operators with a choice to select a spot judiciously.
“If anybody’s going to throw up a real strong protest, it’s probably going to be residents so you’re sharp to avoid them,” he says, adding that community protests frequently delay license applications.
Most importantly, Mejia advises operators to learn the rules ahead of time, particularly those individuals opening a new spot. He relays horror stories of operators signing a lease, but failing to open their restaurant given code violations.
“Do your homework before you sign the lease,” he says. “Check with the appropriate agencies, both local and state, to make sure the business meets all the requirements.”
For operators opening a second pizzeria, Frank Fox of Chicago-based Fox’s Pizza says reputation goes a long way toward a more efficient process. Fox recently opened a new location in Chicago’s southwest suburbs, a 20-minute drive from his current spot, and says that although he got grilled by local leaders and had some moments of “hot seat wondering,” he understood that years of reputation, maintenance, presentation, and stability carried his application.
“[The council] knew who I was and knew I watched minors and consumption,” says Fox. “That’s the best advice I can offer to anyone, existing or new—have a clean record and they’ll respect how you conduct yourself with the product.”
Mejia reports that obtaining a license generally requires 90 days with costs falling anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to six figures. In Washington state, for instance, a hard liquor license might cost anywhere from $2,000-5,000; two New Jersey hard liquor licenses recently sold on the open market for $1.5 million, a nod to the speculative nature that has become more prevalent as zoning has emerged a more challenging hurdle.
For Casey Harris, who once thought he secured a Michigan liquor license for little more than the application fees only to watch new laws change the ballgame, a $20,000 charge is the present price tag. In an attempt to spur downtown development across the state, Michigan passed legislation in 2006 allowing business owners to purchase a liquor license for $20,000—a third of the open market’s going rate—if they could show a $75,000 investment in their downtown property coupled with a $200,000 town investment in redevelopment. Though a hefty cost, it’s a price Harris is willing to pay.
“It’s worth the $20,000 even if it takes a lot of pizzas to make up for it,” says Harris, who hopes to have the license in time for the summer’s active tourist season.
Callaway, meanwhile, now reaps the benefits of the license he obtained in 2003 following a four-year struggle. The frustrations behind him, he’s moving forward.
“It took an election shift on the city council to bring things around, but we finally got it done,” says Callaway. “We’ve been successful with a unique menu catering to different tastes, but now that we’re serving wine we’re no doubt getting customers that we didn’t have before.”
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