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Bethel’s Final Liquor License Remains Undecided

The license for Bethel’s remaining liquor store remains undecided.
Dean Swope/KYUK
/
KYUK

The reason that the state Alcohol Beverage Control Board could not award the final package store license at its meeting this week is that nothing has come out of the city review process with a nod of approval. This week, that left the state ABC board without anything from Bethel to move on.

 

 

Bethel Mayor Rick Robb attended the meeting on Tuesday.

 

“Basically, what I stated is that the three applicants have been protested previously,” said Mayor Robb.

 

The rundown on those three is as follows:

 

First, Steve Chung’s Tundra Liquor Cache was rejected.

 

Second, the Bethel Planning Commission is scheduled to consider the protest filed by Cezary Maczynski for the proposed Kusko Liquor store at Thursday's Planning Commission meeting at 6:30 p.m.

 

And third, the Alaska Commercial Company, or AC, is, according to Mayor Robb, still preparing final paperwork for its second package liquor store to submit to the city planning commission.

 

“My understanding is that their application is not yet complete and they have a few more things to do, like Fire Marshal Permits and things like that. So at this point, that is the status of those three applications,“ said Mayor Robb.

 

That leaves a fourth applicant, Swanson’s, which was the last to apply for Bethel’s final liquor store license. Mayor Robb said that Swanson’s is not far enough along in the process for the Council to make a recommendation one way or another.

 
 
Correction: Our original story stated, “since Bethel created its conditional use permitting process, no applicant has succeeded in getting a permit.” This is not the case as Fili’s Pizza was the first store to receive a conditional use permit to sell alcohol.