BILL NUMBER: S55

SPONSOR: HOYLMAN
 
TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the alcoholic beverage control law, in
relation to requiring the state liquor authority to make available to
the public information pertaining to any conditions it imposes on a
licensed premises

 
PURPOSE:

To ensure that the State Liquor Authority (SLA) maintains on its website
public information regarding the method of operations of establishments
under its jurisdiction.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section One of the alcoholic beverage control law is amended by adding a
new section 110-c to make available to the public all digitally archived
information pertaining to any conditions it imposes on the operation of
a premises licensed by the authority pursuant to this chapter, including
but not necessarily limited to information pertaining to the hours
              

during which the licensed premises is allowed to operate, the maximum
permitted occupancy of the licensed premises and any special conditions
imposed by the authority on the licensed premises.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

On-premises licenses issued by the State Liquor Authority list details
of the "Method of Operation" of the premises, including: days and hours
of operation, whether live music or dancing is permitted, if the prem-
ises includes an outside area, etc. Disturbingly, there is no repository
of information-where members of the public can access this Method of
Operation information. As a result, local residents, businesses and,
other interested parties have no way of determining the specifics of an
SLA on-premises license, for example, what hours the establishment is
permitted to stay open or whether anything other than background music
such as a disc jockey - is permitted. The only option for the public to
learn this information is through filing a Freedom of Information Law
(FOIL) request, which is a time consuming and lengthy process.

Equally troubling is that local police precincts do not have the details
of SLA on-premises licenses either. This means that when the police
answer e complaint about a noisy bar, there is no way for an officer to
determine whether the establishment is in compliance with its on-premis-
es license terms, such as hours of operation or whether it can have a
DJ.

The State Liquor Authority has recently taken measures to become more
transparent by listing the identity of license holders in local communi-
ties on a publicly available website. The next step is to require that
the relevant information about these licenses be publicly available on
the SLA website as well, and to maintain a continuously updated data-
base.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

S.0099-A of 2017-2018 (Hoylman): Died in IGO
A.3677 of 2017-2018 (Glick): Died in Economic Development (2017)/Died on
Third Reading (2018)
S.343 of 2015-2016 (Hoylman): Died in Investigations & Government Oper-
ations A.4067 of 2015-2016 (Glick): Died in Economic Development
(2015)/Passed Assembly (2016)
S.3077 of 2013-2014 (Hoylman): Advanced to Third Reading (2013)/Died in
Investigations (2014)
A.6073 of 2013-2014 (Glick): Passed Assembly

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

To be determined

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall have
become law.