It’s undeniable that we are living in the golden age of craft beers. From large cities to small towns, restaurants and breweries are popping up in our neighborhoods and delighting beer drinkers with their crafty concoctions. However, the path to getting that liquor license approved, so we can enjoy these brewed pleasures, is littered with potential pitfalls. This can be particularly problematic if there are no available liquor licenses in the municipality in question. For those lawyers who have never dealt with liquor license transfers, it can come as a shock that there are quotas in Pennsylvania regarding the amount of liquor licenses available by county and municipality.

Pennsylvania’s Liquor Code (47 Pa.C.S.A. Section 4-461(a)) places a restriction on the number of available county liquor licenses, specifically restaurant licenses (R) and eat place licenses (E), at one per three thousand residents. Therefore, each county has a certain specified number of liquor licenses that are available.