A Gonzales man was arrested Tuesday for operating a bar without a valid state alcohol permit, according to the state Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control.

The owner was booked into the Ascension Parish Jail on 210 counts of operating without a permit and his business was closed by ATC agents. The bar had been operating without a state alcohol permit since March 2015.

The Wyoming Liquor Division has awarded a retail liquor license to the City of Douglas, and it will be up for grabs in August, along with new guidelines for the application process.

The new guidelines include looking at the business’ location, the viability of the business and financial plans, and when the business plans on opening in cases where construction or renovation is required.

Muskegon Heights passed a city liquor control ordinance that will give it more sway over businesses with liquor licenses.

The ordinance allows the city to revoke liquor licenses for violating “state and local ordinance rules concerning health, safety, moral, conduct or public welfare.”

“We’re kind of forced to pay the piper on these charges, because you don’t get a clean slate when a license transfers,” Nelson said last month, after he and city officials arrived at an accommodation of sorts.

This story is all too common. A Trenton, NJ bar owner will have to pay for the previous owner’s violations because of the way his city’s liquor license laws operate. To be clear, we don’t take a stance on the law. We just advise businesses to always pay close attention to the licensing status of their new acquisitions. Who knows what they’ll find when they conduct a business license gap analysis.

With liquor licenses being tied to population growth, Wyoming Liquor Division to issue more licenses.

The number of liquor licenses the state allows cities to distribute is based on population totals. As populations grow, the state Liquor Division issues more licenses.

We’ve said it before and we will say it again. There are few tricks to getting a liquor license once the licensing authority has decided that only a handful are available.

“In Montana, where there is a cap on the number of liquor licenses available in the state, purchasing a liquor license has proved to be quite expensive, since there is great demand and limited supply… A recent sale of one noted that “Buffalo Wild Wings paid $575,000 for the all-beverage license.”

The only way to avoid this trap is to know where the traps are located. Do you research way in advance and make sure that a comprehensive licensing database is in your toolkit.

In many cities, there is a set amount of liquor licenses and a business needs to buy and transfer one from an existing business in order to obtain one. In Oshtemo, MI, the process to transfer is about to get a bit more complex.

“Another change to the ordinance requires that any necessary remodeling or construction required for use of the license must begin within three months, rather than the previous six.”

It’s interesting how liquor licenses interact with so many other areas of a retail business. Everybody who’s in the business of opening and closing new locations has to take this into consideration. You can’t just look at liquor licenses in a vacuum.

In Rome, GA, they are discussing an increased liquor license fee. Most municipalities typically create a limited number of alcohol licenses in the first place. Then all the businesses have to vie for those available licenses. It does not seem to be the case for Rome, GA, but we have been seeing that more and more localities are limiting the amount of licenses available.

“An informal survey conducted by the Rome News-Tribune found that Rome’s volume-based rate is relatively rare.

Dalton charges businesses $750 annually each for beer and wine pouring licenses, and $2,000 for liquor, while Cartersville only provides a combined beer-wine pouring license for $900, and a liquor pouring license for $1,500.”

Obtaining a liquor license and paying liquor license fees can be complex and expensive depending on where you operate your business. In Mankato, MN, there is a discussion on revisiting the way liquor licenses should be charged as consumer behavior regarding drinking has changed.

“City officials are looking at kitchen facilities as one way to define which businesses are primarily restaurants and which businesses are primarily bars, Miller said. Restaurants with commercial grade burners, ovens, range hoods and larger refrigeration units are more likely to be considered a business that is focused as much on selling food as alcohol.”