Revenue from Liquor Licenses Discussed at Budget Meeting

During a budget discussion Tuesday morning, township officials shed a bit more light on how they expect the implementation of liquor licenses to play out in the coming months.

Mayor John Button said he told PREIT (Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust) the township would be ready to begin bidding out the licenses in February, following the passage of an ordinance in January laying the foundation for the administration of liquor licenses.

Given to pay $1 million each for four liquor licenses at the Moorestown Mall, financial officer Tom Merchel recommended council set the minimum bid for a license at $1 million—a suggestion the members of council seemed in agreement on.

Presuming all goes according to plan and the township receives the $4 million, Merchel also suggested the money be spread out over an eight-year period and the additional revenue be used to reduce taxes. With $500,000 more a year ($4 million divided by eight years), he said the average taxpayer would see a $60 reduction in their tax bill.

Though council seemed amenable to Merchel’s suggestion, they were not prepared to rubber-stamp the idea Tuesday.

In an email to Patch, Deputy Mayor Greg Gallo outlined his thoughts on how the revenue from licenses could best be used, saying, "We need to develop a strategic plan that maximizes the money and extends its uses as long as possible, not simply using it in the short term for quick fixes."

PREIT president Joe Coradino remained noncommittal on the exact whats and whens of his company’s plan for bringing restaurants to the Moorestown Mall. He said PREIT is still in discussions with Vetri Restaurant Group—which had with PREIT in anticipation of the passage of the liquor referendums—as well as a number of other restaurants.

Coradino said he had three different restaurants contact him recently to express interest in opening at the mall, on top of the restaurants PREIT’s already spoken with.

“We’re sort of sorting through the pile,” he said. “We want to come up with the right mix of restaurants—the Italian restaurant, the steakhouse … We don’t want to have any overlap.”

Button also said PREIT has indicated it plans to open the first restaurant before the 2012 holiday season, which Coradino confirmed.

However, Coradino could not say when the company would be ready to announce those restaurants.

In a letter to the editor to Moorestown Patch Tuesday, the mayor said the township had invited PREIT to speak at a council meeting to “outline their vision and plan.”

Coradino responded, “Absolutely ... I would be pleased to come and do that.”

Council touched on several other points during its budget discussion, including significant impacts to the 2012 budget both positive ($300,000 savings from state pension reform, according to Merchel) and negative (more money coming out of the general fund for renting office space for the police department).

Button stressed the need for council to be aggressive in its budgeting process, even though they’ll very possibly be forced to wait past the adoption deadline (March 20) for the state to provide its aid numbers.

“To the extent we can anticipate what the state is going to give us, we should,” the mayor said.

Council will discuss the creation of a schedule of budget workshops at Monday night’s regular meeting.