Bill Text: NJ A2877 | 2018-2019 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Permits municipalities to purchase and issue certain surplus retail alcoholic beverage licenses.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2018-02-01 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Oversight, Reform and Federal Relations Committee [A2877 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2018-A2877-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Assemblyman JOHN F. MCKEON
District 27 (Essex and Morris)
SYNOPSIS
Permits municipalities to purchase and issue certain surplus retail alcoholic beverage licenses.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning plenary retail consumption licenses and amending P.L.1947, c.94.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. Section 2 of P.L.1947, c.94 (C.33:1-12.14) is amended to read as follows:
2. a. Except as otherwise provided in [this act] P.L.1947, c.94 and subsection b. of this section, no new plenary retail consumption or seasonal retail consumption license shall be issued in a municipality unless and until the combined total number of such licenses existing in the municipality is fewer than one for each 3,000 of its population according to the most recent estimates issued by the U.S. Bureau of the Census; provided, however, in the year that the official federal decennial counts are received by the Governor, those federal decennial counts shall be used. No new plenary retail distribution license shall be issued in a municipality unless and until the number of such licenses existing in the municipality is fewer than one for each 7,500 of its population according to the most recent estimates issued by the U.S. Bureau of the Census; provided, however, in the year that the official federal decennial counts are received by the Governor, those federal decennial counts shall be used.
b. A municipality may issue a plenary retail consumption license purchased for fair market value from a contiguous municipality located in the same county if the governing body of the municipality that sold the license and the governing body of the municipality that purchased the license approve the issuance.
(cf: P.L.1999, c.189, s.1)
2. This act shall take effect immediately.
STATEMENT
This bill permits a municipality to issue a plenary retail consumption license (for bars and restaurants) which was purchased for fair market value from a contiguous municipality located in the same county under certain circumstances.
Under current law, a municipality may issue these licenses until the combined total number in the municipality is fewer than one license for each 3,000 persons. Because of these restrictions, there is a shortage of these licenses in some municipalities. This bill addresses this shortage by allowing a municipality to purchase for fair market value a surplus license from a contiguous municipality in the same county as long as the governing bodies of the selling and purchasing municipalities approve.
