{"id":16105,"date":"2017-02-08T06:16:01","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T13:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=16105"},"modified":"2017-02-08T06:16:01","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T13:16:01","slug":"bill-would-give-cities-power-to-set-liquor-license-quotas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/02\/bill-would-give-cities-power-to-set-liquor-license-quotas\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill would give cities power to set liquor-license quotas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Casinos\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

The Gold Dust Casino sits next door to Lucky Lil’s Casino at 15th Street West and Grand Avenue. A bill to revise Montana’s system of liquor license quotas has been introduced in Helena.<\/p><\/div>\n

A Bozeman legislator is proposing a relatively simple fix for what he says is one problem caused by Montana\u2019s complicated system of quotas <\/a>on liquor licenses.<\/p>\n

House Bill 412<\/a>, introduced on Tuesday by Republican Rep. Bruce Grubbs, would allow municipalities, by a vote of their city or town councils, to set their own quotas.<\/p>\n

Under the existing system, established in 1947, the state set population-based quotas on the number of liquor licenses available in each city or town, with adjustments made over time as populations grew or declined.<\/p>\n

All-beverage liquor licenses allow the holder to offer electronic gambling, as do some beer-and-wine licenses, and the state periodically doles out new licenses for the relatively paltry sum of $20,000, awarded by lottery. But to meet the demand, license holders are free to sell their licenses on the open market, for prices that have exceeded $1 million in recent years.<\/p>\n

Grubbs\u2019 bill seeks to expand the number of licenses while protecting the value of existing ones. To do that, licenses created under HB412 would not have any gambling privileges attached and they could not be transferred out of the city or town in which they were issued.<\/p>\n

\"BG\"<\/a>

Bruce Grubbs<\/p><\/div>\n

Grubbs said he introduced the bill because the quota system has made it difficult for Belgrade restaurants to hang onto their licenses, or for new restaurants to open up there.<\/p>\n

That is because the state quota system applies to cities and towns and to all areas within a five-mile radius of city limits. Urban growth has put Belgrade within Bozeman\u2019s quota area, and licenses that were once\u00a0bought or leased relatively cheaply in Belgrade are now being sold in Bozeman, where they command much higher prices.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the Bozeman Chronicle told of one Belgrade restaurant<\/a>, the Desert Rose, that recently lost the liquor license it was leasing because the license owner decided to sell it. Restaurant owner Cindy Brown said the license owner offered to sell it to her for $350,000, which was far outside her price range.<\/p>\n

Since losing the license, she said, her revenues have been cut in half.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just our problem,\u201d said John Youngberg, a former president of the Belgrade chamber and a longtime member of the group. He said similar scenarios are playing out in East Helena, Columbia Falls and in the Kalispell area.<\/p>\n

Grubbs said the concerns in Kalispell were what motivated Rep. Frank Garner, R-Kalispell, to co-sponsor the bill. Both lawmakers want to make it easier to attract and retain new eateries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be an economic driver, as far as attracting new restaurants,\u201d Grubbs said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s also why Paul Cartwright, a former city commissioner in Helena, is supporting the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a city commissioner, you want a vibrant town,\u201d Cartwright said, \u201cwhich means places to meet, which means local cafes and restaurants.\u201d But if local people can\u2019t afford a liquor license, or even a beer-and-wine license, that kind of vibrancy is hard to build.<\/p>\n

He said Laurel might soon find itself dealing with what Belgrade is going through now, if urban growth brings it within five miles of Billings city limits.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Nicole Cromwell, zoning coordinator for the city-county Planning and Community Services Department in Billings, said the city limits of Laurel and Billings are just six miles apart now, thanks most recently to an annexation by Laurel of a subdivision east of town, off Seitz Ronan Road.<\/p>\n

Cromwell said a variety of factors makes it unlikely that Billings will expand for many years much farther west than ZooMontana, now the closest city land to Laurel, but there\u2019s no telling what new annexations Laurel might have in mind.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just small towns that are affected by the quota system, Cartwright said. In bigger cities like Billings, restaurants are often replaced by casinos when restaurants sell their liquor licenses, because only casinos can afford them.<\/p>\n

John Iverson, a lobbyist for the Montana Tavern Association, took issue with the bill, and with its premise. He said Belgrade is \u201cnot under-served,\u201d that are \u201clots of places to get a drink.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the data supports that,\u201d he said of the chamber\u2019s concern that the town is losing licenses. \u201cIt\u2019s more of a perception.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said another false assumption lies behind the claim that existing license holders wouldn\u2019t see a drop in the value of their licenses because the new licenses wouldn\u2019t have gambling attached.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would assume that gaming is the only driver of the license value,\u201d he said, when in fact many casinos derive more income from alcohol sales.<\/p>\n

He also said that Belgrade might get more than it bargains for if Grubbs\u2019 bill were to pass. The Chamber of Commerce is assuming that newly created licenses will be acquired by restaurants, he said, but what if they are snapped up by bars whose only goal is to sell as much alcohol as possible?<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder what Mothers Against Drunk Drivers would think about more people drinking alcohol away from home?\u201d Iverson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find that a little disingenuous,\u201d Youngberg said. \u201cNow they MTA is talking about how they\u2019re concerned that there might be more bars than restaurants?\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe it should be concerned about people in Belgrade having to drive to Bozeman to find a restaurant that serves alcohol, he said.<\/p>\n

As for the chamber\u2019s claim that Belgrade is under-served, Youngberg did his own research and found that Belgrade, with a population of 7,389, has six active full-liquor licenses. Columbia Falls, population 4,796, has nine such licenses, and Miles City, population 8,400, has 19. Livingston, population 7,044, has 20 active full-liquor licenses, he added, and Whitefish, population 6,600, has 18.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, the MTA did support the doubling of statewide restaurant beer and wine licenses, often referred to as cabaret licenses, Youngberg acknowledged, but those are also subject to quotas\u2014leading to relatively high open-market prices\u2014and many restaurant owners feel they need full-liquor licenses to compete successfully.<\/p>\n

Iverson, meanwhile, also rapped the Belgrade chamber for not working with the MTA to craft a better piece of legislation, calling HB 412 \u201can ill-conceived bill that is not a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Youngberg said he did speak with Iverson at the Capitol before the session began and the bill was still being drafted. He said Iverson suggested an even simpler solution\u2014crafting a bill that would draw a line between the quota area of Bozeman and that of Belgrade.<\/p>\n

But Iverson said he would need to talk to the MTA board, Youngberg said, and that was the last communication he had from him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping this works,\u201d Youngberg said of HB 412, \u201cbut we\u2019d be willing to back off and just draw a line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cartwright said giving cities and towns the power to set their own quotas makes sense because their elected officials know the needs of their communities. Some towns that have unissued licenses could even decide they have enough outlets and lower their quotas, he said.<\/p>\n

In an op-ed that appeared in the Helena Independent Record<\/a> this weekend, Cartwright said there is another reason to allow cities to set their own quotas: \u201cThey reap the benefits and suffer the downsides of bars and restaurants. Why not let them determine how many licenses is the right number?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Bozeman legislator is proposing a relatively simple fix for what he says is one problem caused by Montana\u2019s complicated system of quotas on liquor licenses. House Bill 412, introduced on Tuesday by Republican Rep. Bruce Grubbs, would allow municipalities, by a vote of their city or town councils, to set their own quotas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[5487,5486,5485,2150,5490,5488,5418,2056,2057,5489],"class_list":["post-16105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","category-news","tag-belgrade-chamber-of-commerce","tag-bruce-grubbs","tag-casinos","tag-frank-garner","tag-john-iverson","tag-john-youngberg","tag-legislature","tag-liquor-license-quotas","tag-montana-tavern-association","tag-nicole-cromwell","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}