Metro Nashville Beer Board announced temporary beer permit charge

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Category: beer, Metro Nashville Beer Board

09.19.18

At its regular meeting last week, the Metro Nashville Beer Board announced it will charge $8.33 per month for temporary beer permits. The new charge became effective Monday, September 17, 2018.

Instead of seeing this as a bitter pill to swallow, we see the new procedure as icing on the cake. $8.33 is basically the margin on a couple of domestics on Lower Broadway. It’s really not much money for a permit to sell beer.

The Metro Beer Board has been streamlining the process for applications since Benton McDonough was named Executive Director a few months ago. After you supply all your documents and required inspections to the Beer Board, you can new obtain a temporary beer permit, instead of waiting for the next Beer Board meeting. Paying for the permit is only fair.

Although there is nothing in state law that specifically authorizes the city to charge for a temporary beer permit, it is just a beer permit, and beer boards are authorized to charge $100 per year for beer permits. The $8.33 amount represents the one-month prorated amount for a $100 beer permit. 

This passes statutory muster, in our humble opinion. 

For those thinking about bellyaching about the $8.33 fee, here’s a good one from Travis Tritt, suggested by our friend Willa:

Now won’t you tell me if you can

‘cause life’s so hard to understand

why’s the rich man busy dancing

while the poor man pays the band.

Oh they’re billing me for killing me

Lord have mercy on the working man.