Gibraltar’s Reserve Liquor License Going for $20,000

The Town of Gibraltar decided in February to move forward with issuing its reserve liquor license, necessitating a rewrite of its liquor-license ordinance, and that rewritten ordinance was approved during the town’s April 12 meeting.

The reserve license will be issued July 1, when all of the town’s other liquor licenses are renewed. It will be sold for $20,000 – a price that town administrator Travis Thyssen suggested after speaking with officials in other municipalities to determine an area-appropriate fee. Per state statutes, the issuance fee for a reserve license must be at least $10,000, but it may exceed that amount. 

In addition to including language for the reserve license, Gibraltar’s rewritten ordinance added a provision that, to be eligible for a liquor license, a business must be open for at least 100 days per year. That provision was included in the town’s 1999 liquor ordinance, then removed from the 2014 ordinance for unknown reasons. The board approved putting it back in to ensure that no shuttered businesses would be able to take up a license.