But with the COVID-19 pandemic, and state government working much slower, business owners say Ohio’s processing of liquor permits has been dragging. So they have been applying for them well before their buildings are complete.
An attorney for Hamilton in mid-April contacted city staff, urging the city change that policy to match what many other Ohio cities do. City staff agreed.
Tom Vanderhorst, Hamilton’s director of external affairs, said a change of the policy would make Hamilton “a little bit more business-friendly.”
Rather than object to a liquor permit early in the process, the city instead can keep an establishment from opening by denying a building permit or a food-service-operators license, in which case “the permit will not be issued,” Vanderhorst said.
He noted what would seem to be a simple transfer of a liquor permit to Hamilton’s parks conservancy for the two city-owned golf courses still hasn’t been approved by the state. The conservancy took over the courses in February 2020, he said.
“I hope that you see a lot fewer objections in cases like this for the new permits,” Vanderhorst told City Council.
“I think it’s fantastic,” said Matt Pater, an owner of the under-construction Hamilton Landing, who said he thanked both Vanderhorst and City Manager Joshua Smith. “”I know they’re slammed-busy, and honestly, for them to take as much time as they did to speak with my attorney. ... It meant a lot to me.”
Pater had urged them not to object to the permit for the property, which will open in phases, an outdoor beach-type bar first, with the indoor banquet and restaurant facilities to follow. “I said it took me six months to get this far with it. I applied for this the day I went and looked at the Knights of Columbus building,” Pater said.
“I said, ‘If I have to start again, I’m going to lose the summer,’” he said about hopes to open the outdoor bar relatively soon.
Crews are performing work on outdoor bar locations along the Great Miami River that don’t require building permits.
The lawyer sent city officials his interpretation of state law on the matter, “and they contacted me later that day and said, ‘Hey, I think we can run with this,’ and apparently they’re changing the way they’re doing it now going forward for everybody.”
“For them to be adaptable, and to see a new way of doing things and incorporate that, it meant the world to me,” Pater said. “Our plan is to open for part of the summer with our outdoor area. We weren’t going to be able to do that if we had to start back at square one.”
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