UPDATED: Liquor License Proposals Due Tuesday

Tomorrow afternoon the township will find out who's interested in buying liquor licenses, and how much they're willing to pay. 

are due tomorrow and will be opened at 4 p.m. at the .

Mayor John Button said PREIT, owners of the Moorestown Mall, and East Gate Square both picked up the necessary forms to submit proposals. The mayor was not aware of any other interested parties who had picked up forms.

As part of the application process, the applicant has to make an offer for how much they'd be willing to pay for a license, according to Button. 

PREIT has pledged, on multiple occasions, both privately and publicly, , as it plans to open four full-service restaurants at the mall.

Based on PREIT's offer, the proposal form explicitly states proposals less than $1 million will not be accepted, with a $400,000 good faith deposit also required per application, according to township attorney Thomas Coleman. So if PREIT applies for four licenses, for example, they would need to put $1.6 million down. 

Based on recent sales data, the $1 million price tag seems to be on the high end. Last fall, M&M Development Co. paid $500,000 for a license owned by Swanky Bubbles, a bankrupt bar and restaurant formerly located in the Short Hills Shopping Center in Cherry Hill, according to the Courier-Post.

However, John Hiros, of Bung's Tavern in Burlington, who sits on the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association, said it's difficult to say what the average market price for a liquor license is these days.

According to Hiros, there's an abundance of licenses in the river towns of Burlington County, so they're cheaper in those communities. He said licenses have sold for anywhere from $100,000-800,000 in Burlington County in recent years.

, alleging its restriction of licenses to the Moorestown Mall——is illegal. Coleman said he expects a decision from Superior Court Judge Ronald Bookbinder sometime in August, before any licenses would be awarded.

Coleman said it usually takes between 90 to 120 days to process a liquor license application, in part because the state police and FBI have to conduct a background check, fingerprint, etc. every applicant. Based on that timeline, the earliest a license could be awarded is October. PREIT has previously stated it plans to have at least some of the new restaurants at the mall open in time for the 2012 holiday season. 

"If PREIT were to submit applications for liquor licenses, it would be prudent for council to award those licenses as soon as we can," Button said Monday. "We certainly don't want to do anything that slows PREIT down."

He said it's probable township council will discuss the proposals at its next meeting on July 9. 

Check with Moorestown Patch tomorrow for a full story following the opening of the proposals.