Today we bring you the second part of our conversation with Mayor Anthony Minniti and it centers around Cinnaminson’s liquor licenses.
“Licenses are based on population. For every 7,500 residents you are allowed to issue one sales license. For every 3,000 residents you can get a consumption license.”
“The Wine Cellar license is one of our sales licenses. The ShopRite license is the old Shay’s Liquor license. It was never renewed and Cinnaminson, as soon as we moved above 15,000 residents, we immediately created the license and used it to lure ShopRite.”
There are two Broad-C licenses in town and they are held by Whistler’s and the Jug Handle Inn. Broad-C licenses allow consumption and sales.
Other consumption licenses are held by Merion Caterers, Hathaway’s and Riverton Country Club. The last consumption license issued was to the country club.
“The only way we can get a consumption license is if one of the current licensees or license holders decided to sell their license,” Minniti said. “That would be the only way.”
“There is an option called a concessionaires permit, where on an annual basis, a municipality can issue a liquor license for use on property that it owns. That would typically be a sports team or some municipal facility that decided to allow alcohol sales.”
Minniti offered another possible alternative to bringing another liquor license to Cinnaminson.
“If we were to find a hotel with 100 rooms or more, that hotel by statute would be able to apply for a consumption license. There would be opportunity there for some sort of restaurant use connected to the hotel. The legislature determined that the restaurant could be in the hotel parking lot with a walkway in between the two.”
“The caveat here is that we wouldn’t issue the license, the hotel would. So the hotel would make the decision as to how they would use the license.”
Minniti has gone as far as proposing legislation governing municipalities and the sale of liquor licenses.
“I proposed legislation five or six years ago that wasn’t picked up, unfortunately. I proposed that municipalities that are dry and choose to not issue licenses, like Riverton, that through a certain process they could activate the licenses they are entitled to by law.”
The legislation was posted by Senator Diane Allen in the New Jersey Legislature, but was not picked up.
“The legislation I proposed would allow municipalities to activate and sell unused liquor licenses, keep the revenue from the sales, and let a town like Cinnaminson use those licenses. It was a creative spin on shared services. Nobody wanted to sponsor the legislation.”
Minniti explained why liquor licenses are so hard to come by in the state of New Jersey.
“The biggest reason the bar and restaurant association is so opposed to changing is that these licenses are assets. If you did anything to dilute the value of the licenses, the owner of the license could claim material harm.”
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Image credit: By AleWi – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54208287
