Gov. Phil Murphy had hoped to oversee a significant reform of New Jersey’s Prohibition-era rules that limited restaurants from selling alcohol without a liquor license. Under S4265 and A5912, passed by both houses in a lame-duck session, there would be a limited increase in the availability of liquor licenses.
New Jersey caps the number of liquor licenses so that only one is available for every 3,000 residents in a municipality. The result has been high sales prices for obtaining liquor licenses, if even available, and forcing restaurants, without licenses, to conduct business as a BYOB, or “Bring Your Own Bottle.” Many critics thought the system was archaic and inequitable and hindered competition with neighboring states. It also favored those with the means to purchase liquor licenses while mom-and-pop family-type operations with lack of capital face economic barriers and suffer from the inability to entice customers by offering the convenience of serving alcoholic beverages from the menu and the financial benefit derived from such an option. Changes in the law would have been a boon to municipal downtown areas.
