Court ruling on out-of-state ownership not problematic... yet
Pub Date: 1/1/2003
Neal Peterson, head of liquor licensing at the Department of Revenue, reported that a recent district court ruling that declared Montana's statute limiting liquor license ownership to state residents had been declared unconstitutional.
Further, Peterson said, the U.S. Supreme Court in May derclared states cannot discriminate in liquor shipping policies between in-state and out-of-state producers, in effect cementing the district court ruling on licenses.
So far, Peterson said, the state has received in the neighborhood of 10 applications for liquor licenses from non-residents.
He noted another Montana statute limits all-beverage licenses to one per individual (no limit on beer and wine licenses), so some problems may crop up when the department is trying to determine which individual in a corporation is to be the responsible party on the license. He added off-premise licenses owned by corporations have had designated responsible individuals listed for years and that wasn't problematic.
Morris noted the licensing could be handled similarly to a fraternal application, where the fraternal organization owns the license but a responsible individual is assigned to it.
Carson expressed concern that the effort expended over the last several years to tighten the licensing time frame from 190 to 90 days could be lost if non-resident licensing and investigations proved to consume significant time and resources.
He also wondered how new costs of a potentially larger task might be covered.
Peterson acknowledged that investigating the non-resident corporate owners or responsible individuals could pose some problems, but that the department was considering simply requiring the necessary records and individuals be brought to Montana for investigation.
Huntington added that the GCD, which conducts the license investigations, has experience with non-residents, as it currently licenses out-of-state gaming machine manufacturers and route operators.
Tooke also wondered how dedicated to responsible practices would a large, non-resident corporate entity be, and how liable.
Peterson responded that in his experience corporate owners of off-premise licenses were quite conscientious and employed rigorous policies to ensure responsible retailing.
Peterson said some new rules and possibly legislation may be required to bring Montana's regulatory scheme into compliance with the court rulings.
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, Oct. 2005, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.