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Jeremy Hutchinson Amends Alcohol Application Bill

1 min read

State Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Benton, told Arkansas Business early last week that he planned to amend his bill increasing the fee to apply to sell wine, spirits and malt liquor, and, indeed, he has.

Hutchinson’s SB151 originally increased the application fee to $25,000 from $2,000, with $21,000 of that refunded to successful applicants and $23,000 to those unsuccessful in obtaining a permit. But that requirement for an initial $25,000 outlay drew complaints for being prohibitively high.

“My intent is to try to prevent the gaming of the system,” the senator said. “It’s a lottery system and there are people who will put five or six different applications in, using their brother or their wife or their sibling, whatever. And they stack the deck. I don’t think that’s fair in a lottery system.”

Hutchinson said, however, that he’d heard the complaints and would change his proposal. He said he was seeking some sort of application fee “balance” that would discourage multiple applications without prohibiting people from applying. The amended bill now puts the fee at $10,000, of which $8,400 would be refunded to successful applicants and $9,300 to unsuccessful applicants.

As Arkansas Business reported three weeks ago, retailers in Saline County have been lining up for permits from the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Division after voters on Nov. 4 approved alcohol sales in the county. Before the November election, only private clubs could sell alcohol in the county.

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