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Mark February 17th through 19th very boldly on your calendar. If you didn’t already know, those are the official dates for the massive NBA All Star games hitting downtown Salt Lake City. According to some, estimations are that 115,000 attendees will pitch up to watch the action. Ben Winslow notes an expected $40 million economic … Read more
Well that was a head scratcher. Maybe someone was passing around the egg nog, but the final DABS meetup of 2022 left this curious onlooker a smidge confused. Lets start with the main item therein… Bar licenses After some jiggery pokery with the population numbers I believe an extra bar license was conjured up from … Read more
November’s DABS meeting wrapped up this Tuesday morning, and confirmed what was writ large last month; full service restaurant liquor licenses are about to splutter out of existence in Utah. The seven restaurants that applied for this license type (allowing liquor, beer and wine with the ordering of food) were all duly approved, but future … Read more
If you’ve been following along with morbid curiosity this year, you’re no doubt aware of the storied drought of bar licenses in Utah. Want to open a bar in the Beehive? You better have a cash runway like Elon coupled with the patience of Job (the biblical one, not the Appley one). What many haven’t … Read more
After last month’s DABS meeting you might recall I posed this not entirely rhetorical conundrum. When tasked with managing Utah’s most precious of resources – that’s bar licenses not water duh – how exactly should a kingmaker act? This month saw one possible course of action come to pass, which is to say, inaction. Demurring … Read more
After consultation with the DABS this story has been revised as of September 27th. As of this date the “wine of the month club” legislation proposed in this year’s changes to Utah’s liquor laws have not yet come into effect. Once they do, we will have the *full* and formal scoop. The service described below … Read more
If recent DABS meetings weren’t worrying enough for would be bar owners, the August meeting writ large the reality of a distressing future. Entering the eighth edition of this year’s disbelief fest, fourteen Utah bars turned up hoping for the best. Five business were ready to roll, three bar licenses up for grabs. But wait, … Read more
The headline news – at least according to out of state onlookers and column inches – is the return of mini bottles in the Beehive. Last seen on shelves here in the 1980s, a vote at the July DABS meetup saw their re-instatement approved. Ho hum huh. Miniature liquor bottles of 50ml and wine of … Read more
Yesterday saw the momentous day of reckoning that we’ve been previewing since March. With the myriad updates to Utah’s liquor laws now in effect for for 2022, a once in a generation bounty of full bar licenses were up for grabs – ten to be precise. As commissioner Thue dubbed it,”barapalooza”. Let’s get straight to … Read more
You might recall we recently recapped all the updates to Utah’s liquor laws that came into force this June. You might also recall the headline news about the loss of tens and tens of hard seltzer brands from stores across Utah. Essentially, as the definition of beer changed this year, so did the compliance of … Read more
It’s been a rollercoaster year regarding liquor laws, but then isn’t it always in Utah? In the omnibus liquor bill for 2022 the headline news was that roughly fifty percent of hard seltzers will now vanish from grocery store shelves (more on that in a minute); but you might rightly wonder what else is hidden … Read more
As the clock ticks down to the June DABC meeting (sorry it’s DABS now folks) so the interest escalates around who exactly will snaffle up all those delicious bar licenses set to unfurl. Just like an exotic flora that blooms once every 17 years, this is a practically unheard of event, something to witness and … Read more
RoHa brewing in Salt Lake City was the solitary business rewarded with blink and miss it bar license at this months DABC meeting. The bar – four months on the wait list – also recently toasted five years in business; the April meeting then, a cherry on top of an already notable birthday. Two licenses … Read more
After the damp squib that was 2022’s liquor legislation, it was a surprise to discover that two bar licenses ended up being dangled before covetous bar operators at the March DABC shindig. Previous meetups had suggested a solitary license would only become available in May through population increases. Supplementing a surprise March license then was … Read more
It’s been a rollercoaster year regarding liquor law (see all our coverage here), culminating in a tumultuous past three months of legislative intrigue; well the wait’s now over, the 2022 session is finished, and with it, a raft of liquor code updates that will hit the streets come June 1st. In the omnibus liquor bill … Read more
Sad news the this week, as a staple of the city’s food scene announced their imminent closure. South East Asian Market (422 E 900 S) will be closing their doors after more than two decades in business – stop by to say goodbye this week, and avail yourself of their clear out fire sale too. … Read more
Well there you have it. Two months into the year and bar licenses are pretty much toast. Want to open a bar in Utah? Come back in May, because that’s when a single license will be up for grabs next. And after that, who knows… With various news outlets reporting on a state legislature unconvinced … Read more
It sounds like the premise of a bad joke: fifteen bars walk into a… but no, this was the reality of January’s DABC meeting. One singular bar license, fifteen business jostling for position and five ready to go today. Welcome to Utah. To remind you then, the state currently has a complete dearth of available … Read more
Get ready for a fraught 2022 folks. Following this months DABC meeting, Ben Winslow confirmed via this story that the Utah legislature seems unmoved by the perilous state of Utah’s liquor license inventory. Indeed, things might actually get worse yet still – if that’s even possible. As part of the FOX13 story, Winslow highlighted the … Read more
DABC commissioners gathered this week to debate the outcome of an unexpectedly available bar license – which at this point are right up there with unicorns in terms of improbability. Commissioners didn’t elaborate on the reasons behind the freed license, but if memory serves, one license was being held back pending ongoing litigation – presumably … Read more