Michael I. Halfacre, Esq. is the Executive Director of the Beer Wholesalers Association of New Jersey and a former ABC Director.
Trenton NJ, Recently, Governor Murphy announced plans to make liquor licenses cheaper and more available in the Garden State. Specifically, the Governor’s plan would increase licenses by decreasing the population cap, currently set at one on-premise license per 3,000 residents. The Governor’s plan would do this gradually over five years after which there would be no limits on the number of licenses issued in the state. Under Governor Murphy’s plan, after five years, no license could be sold privately, effectively rendering current liquor licenses worthless and crushing their current fair market value. To address this loss, the Governor also proposes a complicated system of tax credits to compensate for the loss of the license value. Unfortunately, a tax credit is worthless when your business does not turn a profit or goes bankrupt and could cost taxpayers billions to fund.
