Finding a restaurant in fresh Jersey where you can order a glass of wine with your dinner isnt easy. And it wasn't meant to be. The state’s liquor laws were created after Prohibition to limit access to alcohol. And not a lot has changed since.
As of 1969, the state permits one bar or restaurant liquor license for every 3000 residents per town. According to a spokesperson for the NJ Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, the state's liquor laws were more lenient when they were established in 1947. At that time, and the state allowed one liquor license for every 1000 residents. "The license numbers were set a long time ago when populations of localities were very different," said John Dunhan, an economist at Dunham and Associates who studies the affect of policy on products — like alcohol. "What these licenses have done is they’ve set in stone the demographics and the economic situation that existed honest after prohibition."
// According to an analysis by the WNYC Data News Team:60 cities have just one bar or restaurant with a license to serve alcohol
67.1% of cities have more bar and restaurant liquor licenses than the 1-per-3000 population rule would allow 41.1% cities have at least double the number of bar and restaurant licenses that the population rule would allow
And the way the history and math works out, and the city of Hoboken would need to grow by 250000 residents just to add one more license."That’s not going to happen," said fresh Jersey Assemblyman John Burzichelli, a Democrat. He’s introduced a bill that would allow cities to have as many restaurant liquor licenses as they want."The old way that we accomplish things based on population isn’t serving us, and " Burzichelli said. "Government has not kept up with what the marketplace wants."Newer restaurants cannot offer alcohol,so the state allows residents to bring their own. But Burzichelli says that's hard on business."The BYOs have been sort of a wink-and-a-nod operation," he said. "I’m not a tall BYO fan myself. I drink vodka, and so I'm not going to carry a bottle of vodka."
Source: wnyc.org