Legislative Liquor License Limit Lifted

The bipartisan effort to limit the number of liquor licenses in Howard County has been abandoned by the county’s state lawmakers. According to this story by Sara Breitenbach in The Columbia Flier, the delegation “removed the limitation and instead would require the county liquor board to issue a written opinion discussing the criteria that it considers, such as where existing licensed businesses are located, when granting or denying a license.”

The chair of the county delegation and cosponsor of the bill, Guy Guzzone acknowledged that “legislators had worried that limiting the number of available licenses will give those licenses value, thus encouraging the trading and selling of licenses among retailers.”

Duh.

Score one for the consumer.