In a legislative interim meeting yesterday commercial developers testified that the state’s acute license shortage will cause existing permits to be priced artificially high — pushing small business and entrepreneurs out of the mix. It’s simple economics, when there is no supply [of licenses] but a great demand, costs will increase significantly.
Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem, who sponsored
SB314, which allowed licenses to be sold on the open market, said the
intent was to make it easy for restaurants to sell all assets when they
closed. He acknowledged the need for him to bring back
proposals to the committee to free up more licenses. But administrative
rules or proposed legislation could take months to enact.
A year ago, commissioners at the Utah
Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control were so opposed to permit
holders selling licenses that they took the unprecedented — but
unsuccessful — step of asking Gov. Gary Herbert to veto SB314. The bill
also freed up a few restaurants licenses, but it didn’t take long for
the supply to run dry. This month, 45 applicants have filed for a
variety of liquor permits — but only one, a full-service license
allowing all types of alcohol — is available.
Source: Salt Lake Trib
1 comment:
With 45 applicants and only 1 license, that shows that the demand in this state greatly outstrips the supply. I don't think that that will mean whomever gets the few permist moving forward would just turn around and sell them as most applicants have true intentions of using that golden license for themselves.
While this foolishness does have an economic impact, liquor is not one of the states primary economic drivers, and thus will not rise to the level that the Utah Legislative branch will budge from their current stance. Not as long as they continue to bow down to the ones in the large building just at the bottom of the hill.
Post a Comment