Depending on the town/city in which the license is located, they could start at around $250K-I’ve seen some selling for $550,000 and I’m sure more. The number of licenses per municipality is based on population and no new ones have been issued in years, as far as I know. It’s the equivalent of a piece of property, for god’s sake! It is also the reason why NJ is such a BIG Box store state, fighting to leverage the enormous investment made during startup.
Each municipality has a fixed amount of licenses based on population, however as the population has changed most towns still have the same amount of licenses, a few wealthy owners who could afford to challenge this have and a few have succeeded in getting new licenses issued.
The cost is wildly variable depending on the town and amount of licenses, as an example Paramus (on busy rt 17) only has a few licenses and the values are super high (500k+). However there are LOTS of licenses available in small towns for much less (I recently heard of one sold in Bergen county for only $10k). Lots of factors at work here…locations, type, rent, quantity of licenses, etc.
The best deal on a license would be a “pocket license” of an out of business retailer.
NJ also has three basic type, off-premise, on-premise & broad C on premise with an off premise exception (cool for a wine bar)
There is no thing as a waiting list, however you can buy a list of active or inactive licenses from the NJ ABC.
Also you can’t shop for licenses online as most are offered by business brokers and specifics are not disclosed without a NDA.
Lyle, if you have any more specific ?'s feel free to call me (Daniel / Jim have my cell) or you can PM/email me from here.
I was told recently that the C-class or ‘Tavern’ licenses were grandfathered in and have to remain in the family to stay active, ie you could not purchase a license from a stranger who owns a dirty old packy-bar and turn it into a cool, hip wine bar. I can’t verify the truthfulness to this statement, however.
Where in Jersey are you looking? I might have a lead for you…