Yesterday, the ABC board handed down two significant decisions for Georgetown. As reported by the Current and the Citypaper, first they approved the extension of the liquor license moratorium with an additional seven new licenses available. Second, the rejected CAG’s and the ANC’s request to apply a moratorium on the Georgetown Court complex.
GM has discussed both these issues before. The first issue appears to be a commonsense response to the current situation, namely that the market price for liquor licenses in Georgetown have skyrocketed. Moreover, even with these seven new licenses and the sixteen or so licenses in safe-keeping, there would still be fewer licenses available in Georgetown than there were at the time the moratorium was first enacted. GM still thinks that the lack of a use-it-or-lose-it provision for licenses in safe keeping is more to blame for the excessive price of liquor licenses, but this will certainly help. At least for a little while. Continue reading
