Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Selling Liquor
Thread: Selling Liquor
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Old 08-28-2017, 02:14 PM
John_W John_W is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dewilson58 View Post
I see an adv on ToTV for liquor.

Can you sell liquor in the state of Florida without a license.

You didn't include a link to the advertiser or provide any background information such as a store name, a private name, location, website.

Just going by your question, yes you need a license to sell package liquor, which is not the same as a license for consumption on premises (COP License). A liquor license in Florida is a quota license, meaning they are limited to the number of people in the county. I believe in 1939 Florida stopped issuing liquor licenses. They will issue a new license whenever the population increases by 7,500 in that county. For this reason, liquor licenses are real property and are an inheritable item and to purchase a license you must submit to a lottery for a license when it comes available and the price can be anywhere from $50,000 to $750,000 depending on the demand. There is also a state activation fee which I believe is about $10,000.

I remember many years ago when living in St. Petersburg, Albertson's was the first grocery chain that started having a package stores located at the grocery store, this is in the early 70's. They opened their first location in downtown St. Petersburg in 1975 and needed the license badly since they didn't want to wait on opening the package store later. They paid $300,000, which was a lot in the mid 70's. That's when I first learned about the quota system.