Page 13 - Issue 46 Oct2020

REALESTATENJTM 11
interested in investing in restaurants going forward to replace those?”
Burzichelli most recently introduced the legislation in mid-January. The bill, A1700, mirrors his other recent proposals in that it would create new specialized liquor licenses at a lower cost, including a restricted permit that allows a restaurant to sell beer, wine and hard liquor. A second option would enable municipalities to sell
a restricted permit that allows the holder to sell only beer and wine by the bottle or can.
The measure also includes an important tradeoff, providing tax credits for “the qualified loss in value” to certain businesses that have paid market price for traditional consumption licenses. But the proposal has done little to move the needle with opponents.
What’s more, the bill in its current form has yet to earn the support of Trenton’s top lawmakers. Speaking during NAIOP New Jersey’s virtual Public Policy Symposium in July, both Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin said they remained concerned about the values of existing licenses.
“I recognize that licenses are necessary for urban redevelopment, but we need to solve the conundrum of compensating current liquor license holders,” Coughlin said.
Harrison, a member of Genova Burns’ alcohol, food and beverage industry practice group, said the compensation question has only grown more complex with the
“The flip side of that is, for the non-licensed restaurants, anything they can do that will bring in more business, they’re going to see as a positive,” Harrison said. “Being able to serve liquor will help that, but
to a not insignificant degree you’re fighting over the same customers.”
In the meantime, he said many developers are still proceeding with mixed-use projects in some of the state’s best-known downtowns, where activity was robust before
the pandemic. Those clients expect
a return to some sort of normalcy within two years, when those projects
would open, and “are not slowing down” as they look ahead toward construction next spring.
They also feel restaurants will remain a critical piece of their projects, Harrison said, although they are less certain about the role of conventional retail.
“People are still viewing having licensed premises and restaurants as a key component of their redevelopment projects,” he said. “They are taking a second look
at how they’re handling the non- restaurant retail portion of it.”
Goldberg said mixed-use projects remain attractive in New Jersey, especially given the recent migration from New York City to more suburban or quasi-urban locations. That points to continued growth in the demand for housing in the state.
“As people may choose to leave Manhattan, liquor license reform and a viable restaurant scene is more important now and is a more critically significant element of the success of those kinds of neighborhoods than it’s ever been,” Goldberg said. RE
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2020
INDUSTRIAL DEAL OF THE YEAR RECIPIENT
Bill Harrison
economic
crisis. From
a legislative standpoint, he said, “Do you value the license at what they were valued on Feb. 28, 2020,
or do you value
them at what they are today in terms of figuring out the compensation?”
“If I have a current license that had a bar area in addition to a restaurant and I can’t really use my bar area in the same way I was — and I’m becoming the same as what these new licenses would be — I suddenly see them as an even greater threat than I did before,” he said, noting that those operators are now essentially functioning as a restaurant without a bar.