Amlex

The recession begins to help small businesses such as restaurants with advantages such as lower priced liquor licenses.

Glendale, CA (IPRWIRE) Sun. Nov. 30th, 2008 — On October 9 the Wall Street Journal featured a front-page story titled “First Into Recession, California Shows Possible Future for U.S.” Yet for the California restaurant industry, a recession may prove to be a double-edged sword. “Bursting price bubbles aren’t always bad,” said Jon C Mejia, national sales manager for Amlex. “For many of our clients, this is an opportunity to get on a level playing field with their better funded competitors.”

For example, in January of 2008, prior to the economic collapse, county recorder notices showed that full liquor licenses sold in Los Angeles County in the $80-90,000 range, effectively putting a liquor license out of range for many smaller operators.

However, by October of this year, sellers were selling their licenses in the $45-50,000 range as concern grew that the tanking economy would mean even lower prices in the near future. That 50% drop in price means smaller businesses can again afford to compete with their better-funded competitors. So what other positive changes can our current economic climate bring to restaurant operators?

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On April 8, 2008, a liquor license sold for $210,000.00 in Placer County California. Liquor licenses in many other CA counties routinely sell in the $50,000-$100,000 range effectively putting smaller restaurants at a huge disadvantage to the national restaurant chains who have deep pockets

“Small restaurant operators, the ma and pa types, are having a hard time, especially in this rough economic climate” says Jon C. Mejia, Senior Analyst with the American Liquor License Exchange (Amlex), a national, liquor license-brokering firm. “So the annual state liquor license ‘lottery’ is the best bet for the small guys to even the playing field.”

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