Liquor licenses in South Dakota need to change

So restaurants make half the profit bars do on their liquor licenses but they have to pay twice as much – yeah that makes a lot of sense;

Restaurants in Sioux Falls that want to serve liquor will have to fork over a lot more money to get a license. 

The city council raised the licensing fee to $260-thousand dollars Monday night, that’s twice the amount bars pay. The ordinance also limits liquor sales… a restaurant can’t make more than 40% of its profits from alcohol.

As councilor Costello points out the licenses should be a yearly fee like they are in Nebraska so you are not stuck with an expensive piece of paper when you go outta business. (of course, the Gargoyle Leader editorial board thinks it is a great idea) The pricetag is also a barrier. It is pretty obvious that a smaller locally owned restaurant cannot afford such a pricetag only allowing crappy franchise restaurants to buy up the licenses or gigantic grocery store chains. This of course is a competition killer. I have often said the best food in town is served in locally owned restaurants (Minervas, Sushi Masa, Touch of Europe) but only one of them has a liquor license.

Rumor has it that the law is still flawed anyway, it also includes liquor stores, so when the last time the licenses came up for sale, rumor has it, a regional grocery chain bought them all up so they could squash out local liquor store competition.

 Just another dumb law on South Dakota’s books that leaves the little guy out in the cold.