ABLE Commission Hit With Increase In New Liquor License Applications

The implementation of Oklahoma's new liquor law is about three and a half weeks away. And the Oklahoma Alcoholic Beverage Laws Enforcement Commission is working through thousands of alcohol licensing applications.

“We've had a lot of applications come in especially in the last four weeks. August was extremely busy and this month looks like it's going to be even busier as we kind of hit that push to the end towards October,” said Steven Barker, the ABLE Commission Chief Attorney.

Some licenses are for the sale of beer and wine in convenience stores and gas stations, others are employee license applications to legally make the transactions. This stems from passing of State Question 792.

The ABLE Commission says the number of those processed licenses could exceed 60,000.

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As for the grocery and convenience store style licenses, “those we've had about 3,000, roughly, applications. We'd anticipated somewhere between 3,500 to 4,000 so we'll probably get somewhat close to that approximation here by the time we hit the end of September,” Barker said.

Companies were allowed to begin applying for licenses back in October of 2017, ABLE only received 150 in that month. And with a staff of about 40, they are doing their best to get everything approved, come October 1.

Applications that do come in between now and October face the threat of being delayed in receiving approval. But the ABLE Commission is trying to minimize that from happening.