Eatery struggles with ABC licensing system

WASILLA — After a mishandled beer and wine license application, the Alcohol Beverage Control Board and a local eatery agree that something needs to change with how the state regulates such licenses.

The Grape Tap owners Kristin and Casey Cook agreed to purchase the downtown Wasilla restaurant and wine cellar from Kelci Hatcher last fall, after Hatcher asked Kristin Cook to be her successor. Cook had been with the restaurant since it opened in 2009, and was excited to take the helm.

In the months that followed Hatcher’s agreement with the Cooks, it soon became apparent that the new owners would have to obtain a new business license to support a new public convenience license that would allow them to continue serving beer and wine at The Grape Tap.

Though not something they had expected, obtaining the new licenses didn’t seem to be a big deal. Cook said she was determined to do everything by the book and as efficiently as possible to ensure a seamless transition of ownership and operation of The Grape Tap.

But that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

“The list of stuff you have to do is insane,” Cook said.

The Cooks received an eight-page document of instructions requiring that they post a notice regarding the new ownership and licensing in the restaurant, and in a public meeting place within one mile of the restaurant. They were also required to advertise in the local newspaper for three weeks. All notices had to be notarized.

The only public place within a mile of the restaurant Cook could find to hang a notice was the Wasilla Carrs, where she had to climb over carts to get to the store’s corkboard, she said.

Doubtful though she was that anyone would actually see or read her notice at the grocery store — she thought a virtual post to Facebook would be more effective — Cook continued the application process. The next step was to obtain signatures from 50 percent of the 21-plus population, again within one mile of the restaurant. Cook called the City of Wasilla to obtain those numbers, but was told by officials there that the numbers they had included commercial residents in the area, not just private.

So Cook contacted the ABC Board to ask how she would get an accurate population estimate. The board employee then gave her the total population of residents 21 and older in the area from the 2000 census: 1,888.

“I was like, I think that seems a little high,” Cook said.

But she was bound by the board’s records. She would need 944 people to sign a petition approving the sale of beer and wine at The Grape Tap under the new ownership. The quickest way to do that, she figured, was to go door to door.

It wasn’t a positive experience.

“I’ve had people put their dogs out on me, people not opening their doors,” Cook said. “It’s so uncomfortable for me.”

She couldn’t blame residents for wanting some privacy, though.

“It’s so invasive,” Cook said. “And let’s face it, it’s Wasilla. People could show up with a gun at the door.”

All finished?

By the deadline this May, Cook had obtained just 120 signatures. She knew it wasn’t enough, but in the required accompanying letter she explained how difficult — and unsafe — the process had been.

“It’s so archaic, so outdated, it’s silly,” she said.

Still, she turned in all her application materials, hand-delivering them to the Anchorage office. After a brief look through the contents, the recipient said “looks good,” Cook said.

But the application would not be presented until the next board meeting, which wasn’t until July. Hatcher and the Cooks had previously told the board they planned for the official sale to take place in June.

Cook was told by the employee handling her application not to worry, that she and Hatcher could write up a management agreement between themselves to allow the Cooks to operate under Hatcher’s licenses until the application was approved.

Approval seemed a given at this point, but come the end of July, neither Hatcher nor the Cooks had heard from their application correspondent. After receiving no response to a questioning email, Cook figured the presentation of the application had simply been delayed to the next board meeting.

Last week, she found that was not the case.

“I got an email saying, ‘your application’s incomplete’ and ‘your management agreement is invalid,’” Cook said.

She was also told the signatures she had obtained in May were invalid, since more than 90 days had passed since gathering them.

Shocked by this sudden revelation, she asked the sender — not the employee they had been working with — why she wasn’t notified of the issues sooner. As it turned out, the person The Grape Tap owners had been working with was laid off, along with many other state employees, in June. No one knew why Cook hadn’t received an auto-reply to her July email to the employee, though ABC Board director Cynthia Franklin had an idea of where things went wrong.

Lost in translation?

The employee in question was new to the organization, Franklin said, and had only processed two public convenience licenses prior to working with the Cooks.

“It’s not a common license for us to process,” Franklin said. “It’s a very detailed procedure, and he didn’t understand it.”

Franklin didn’t lay it all on the employee, however. The man’s supervisor should have audited his work, something Franklin said she should have made sure happened.

“We apologize to (Kristin Cook) because we were late in getting back to her in the deficiencies in her license application,” Franklin said. “We do feel like (the Cooks) didn’t get the best customer service from us, and … we do strive to provide good customer service.”

To make up for it, the board has agreed to let the Cooks do business as usual through the end of the month while obtaining new signatures, she said. They will also work with the City of Wasilla to get a more accurate population estimate around The Grape Tap, which may mean fewer petition signers are needed.

“We want The Grape Tap to stay in business, we think it’s a great business,” Franklin said. “We just have to make sure that the statutory requirements are met.”

Those requirements may be changing soon, however. If passed with no revisions, Senate Bill 99 would eliminate the public convenience license and grant beer and wine licenses for restaurants through a non-population-limited licensing process, Franklin said — meaning no more door-to-door petition pushing. The public notice requirements would not be significantly altered, she said because they have to apply in all communities of Alaska — including those without Internet access.

The potential passage of the bill won’t solve all the issues of the ABC Board, however. With the Marijuana Control Board added to the ABC Board’s list of responsibilities last year, and no staff hired to account for that, Franklin said, the agency has been scrambling to get everything done in a timely fashion.

“It’s all just a function of an agency being overwhelmed,” she said.

The agency recently hired two new employees, which may help, but might not be enough. And, it will take some time before everyone can be brought up to speed on the board’s current policies.

For more information on the Alcohol Control Board, visit commerce.alaska.gov/web/abc.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266.