SLA Grants Our Requests to Provide Relief for Retailers
The New York State Liquor Authority took several actions at it’s meeting today (March 24, 2020) to provide economic relief for alcohol beverage retailers suffering hardship as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic:
Renewals – The SLA is waiving the requirement to submit renewal fee payments along with renewal applications for the next 60 days. Retailers are still required to submit their renewal applications on a timely basis. Any retailer submitting a renewal application without paying the required fee during this time frame will have their current license stay in effect until the renewal fee is paid. Once the renewal fee payment is made the new license will be mailed to the licensee.
Penalties – The Liquor Authority is continuing to enforce the law and assess penalties against licensees for failing to comply with the law, however they have decided to delay sending out penalty letters for the next 60 days.
Price-Posting – The Authority is opening up this month’s price posting this week to allow wholesalers to reduce prices or increase discounts. No price increases will be permitted as part of this one-time price change. The SLA has posted an Emergency Reopening of Price Posting Module Notice to explain this change.
Municipal Notices – For municipal notices required to be filed as part of SLA applications where the municipality is only accepting electronic documents, the SLA will accept an email from the municipality acknowledging receipt of the notice.
These changes took effect immediately once approved at the SLA’s Board Meeting on March 24, 2020. We had petitioned the SLA to allow for deferred payments for renewal fees and penalties so we’re pleased to see they granted those requests. These are small steps that can help reduce the financial drain on your business while we wait for the federal government to produce a significant small business relief plan – one that put cash in your hands now to help keep the lights on.
We’ll update this post to link to the SLA notice once they post it on their website.