SOUTH JERSEY (KYW Newsradio) — Gov. Phil Murphy’s proposal to overhaul New Jersey liquor laws by adding more licenses and offering tax breaks to current license holders isn’t going over well among brewery owners and licensees.
They want the Garden State to make regulatory changes, but for separate reasons.
New Jersey Restaurant and Hospitality Association President Dana Lancellotti said flooding the market with more licenses unfairly devalues the current licenses.
“There are solutions that don’t require that we just completely ignore the assets and investments made,” she said.
One option: Executive Director of New Jersey Wine and Spirits Wholesalers Jeff Warsh said a good start would be allowing nearly 1,400 inactive liquor licenses to be sold and registered in another town within the county it resides, many of which have been inactive for decades.
They also suggest the state should separate licenses issued at shopping malls from a town’s overall count.
“We can activate more licenses than the governor’s plan in a shorter period of time,” he added.
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And, Warsh said the proposal to give tax breaks to license holders to cover the cost of the license isn’t feasible — some of those licenses cost $500,000 to $1 million, or more.
Brewery owners are also in need of a lifeline, claiming the regulations they operate under are too restrictive. Brewers Guild of New Jersey Executive Director Eric Orlando hopes legislators vote on a specific bill before the summer recess.
“It puts into statute some of the things that we’ve been fighting for,” he said, “including the ability to have events, to work with local food vendors to provide a food option to our customers on-site. It allows us to have events off the brewery premises in our communities.
“I would like to see a proposal that prioritizes breweries … that restores some of the privileges that breweries want, including those that have to do with events.”
These issues have been broken up into several different bills. No dates are set yet for Senate or Assembly votes.
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