Does your establishment qualify to serve alcoholic beverages? If it does, the selling of alcohol could substantially raise your revenues!
The Indiana Alcohol & Tobacco Commission (“IATC”) regulates the use of alcoholic beverages and the Indiana State Excise Police enforces the laws and rules of the IATC.
Obtaining an alcoholic beverage permit through the IATC can be difficult. Not only the difficulty of interpreting the rules and regulations of the IATC, but also the availability of the type of permit you want. There are over seventy (70) permit types available in the State of Indiana! Permits are characterized as one or two or three way permits, meaning your business may sell beer only, or beer and wine only, or beer, wine, and liquor. A permit could be obtained for a retailer restaurant/bar, liquor package store, grocery store, race track, social club, hotel, and more. Each permit type is different in what kind of alcohol you would like to serve, the nature of your business, and if your business is located within or outside city/town corporate limits.
Ways to obtain a permit includes through the State of Indiana if the quota for that type of permit is available, purchasing a permit from another permit owner by transferring the permit or through auction held by the Commission yearly or the census auction held every ten (10) years.
Starting a business that sells alcohol requires you to prepare several weeks ahead of opening day. The process of obtaining a permit from application to the approval of the permit could take up to twelve (12) weeks! Also, there is the responsibility of preparing your employees and servers. One of these steps is ensuring the proper service of alcoholic beverages by attending a certified server training program. This is important when you have employees the age of 19 and 20 years old as they must obtain a restricted permit and attend the training program in order to serve.
From beginning to end, the process of obtaining a alcoholic beverage permit begins with properly filing the correct application, including the attachment of several important documents, a public notice in the newspaper of the hearing date before the local board, appearance at the local board to explain your type of establishment, the local board will then approve or deny your permit application.
In addition to obtaining an alcoholic beverage permit is the creation of your entity with the Indiana Secretary of State and applying for tax identification numbers with the Indiana Department of Revenue. We would be happy to assist with these additional requirements in order to achieve the best entity type for your business.
If you currently have a permit, we can help you with any renewals, transfers, appearances at local board hearings, management agreements, petition for interventions, employee permits and server training, and/or possible deferment of violations issued by the Indiana State Excise Police.
If you need representation to obtain or maintain an alcoholic beverage permit for your business, the experienced attorneys at SFT Lawyers, LLP can help! Contact us today!