Lincoln City Council
Aldermen approve discounts in liquor licenses in upcoming year

 

[January 26, 2021] 

The Lincoln City Council met on Tuesday, January 19th for their regular voting session. The meeting was held on the 19th due to the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday. Seven members of the council were present for the meeting in person with Alderman Ron Fleshman attending via teleconference.

Among the topics discussed and voted upon was the proposal by Kevin Bateman to reduce the liquor licensing fees for the 2021-22 fiscal year for businesses impacted by the coronavirus.

The topic had been introduced two weeks earlier at the end of the January 4th meeting. At the end of a lengthy discussion at that meeting, it was agreed that the question should be taken to the city’s liquor commission for their consideration before voting.

This week Bateman said that the commission had reviewed the suggestion. While no vote was taken, by nod of the head, the commission members agreed that it would be good to give licensees a discount in the coming year.

Bateman’s motion was to reduce by 50 percent the 2021-22 licensing fee for Class B, C, D, and Club license both with and without gaming, for the businesses that were in business and suffered losses due to forced closures in 2020.

The motion excluded package liquor or Class A licensees as well as caterers and special event licenses.

Bateman said that the discount would reduce the city’s total revenue from licensing by $38,250.

When the item was open for discussion Steve Parrot asked about businesses that opened during the year, would their discount be pro-rated according to their opening date. Parrott noted that when a new business starts mid-year, the license fee they pay is pro-rated according to the months remaining before May 1st.

City Clerk Peggy Bateman said that because the discount was for the coming year, there was no pro-rating to do. The discount was not based on the year past, but on the year coming up.

Parrott expressed concern that a business opening very late in the 2020-21 year would still get the full discount for the coming year. He said for example, if a new business opens in April 2021, just a month from the new license taking effect, they would pay a pro-rated amount for the current license, they would not have been under the forced closures in 2020, but would still get a 50% discount.

Bateman said that looking at the current list, he could see that there were possibly two businesses that did open during the 2020 calendar year. He said that he hadn’t considered pro-rating the license discount because it would have been “knit-picking” and would have added to the task for the clerk’s office and the liquor commission.

Tracy Welch said that he felt that even if a business wasn’t open the full year, if they did open during the pandemic, they would have suffered losses just the same as those who had been in business the full year.

He added that he could understand that Parrott was looking at something like quantifying the losses of the businesses. He said he didn’t feel the city wanted to go down “that rabbit hole of deciding whose loss doesn’t merit a break.”

At the end of the discussion Welch called for the vote. Six aldermen voted yes with Sam Downs and Kathy Horn choosing to abstain.

[Nila Smith]