If beer license revoked, compensation is needed
County Commissioners were fairly vague about what might be done for local store owners Travis Martin and Dustin Martin if their beer license is in fact suspended permanently.
What needs to be done, plain and simple, is the county needs to reimburse the two about $750 if the temporary suspension becomes a permanent ban. That’s what the store owners paid for beer they can’t sell and a license that’s not valid.
It should be noted the controversy has occurred through no bad intentions. Commissioners believed the store followed local guidelines and was 2,000 feet from a church. But a measuring miscalculation which didn’t judge the distance as the crow flies has caused Martin’s Martin to now come up about 250 feet short.
Reinstating the license may not be so easy. If if the nearby church gives the store its blessing to sell beer, it still doesn’t qualify under the county’s requirements.
And reducing the distance a store can legally sell beer from places like a church is a politically charged issue. It will certainly draw attention with the race for county executive just around the corner.
Regardless of political maneuvering, the issue surrounding Martin’s Market is a case of right versus wrong. It’s not the right way for the county to do business to yank away a store’s beer license and then leave the store owners with hundreds of dollars worth of beer they can’t sell.
If county officials ultimately determine beer can’t be sold from that location, that’s their decision to make. But if that’s the case, the county needs to provide direct compensation to these local merchants if they are stuck holding the bill.