We now have our liquor license

Thanks to Tom’s tenacious nature and the fact that he’s willing to approach lots of people and ask lots of questions, we now have our liquor license. When Tom talked to the liaison on Monday, he was told that he had to get an ad in a paper to announce to the public that we were applying for a liquor license, and he had to prepare to appear before the liquor board. He called around Monday afternoon and got an ad in a paper, and got home on Monday with the understanding that there was a Thursday night meeting in Georgeville that he needed to attend. We did our errands on Tuesday, spent Wednesday working around here, and Tom planned to go out Thursday afternoon to get the paper, then attend the meeting, and come home after that. I had to stay here because the Army’s cage pickup date had changed from Monday to Thursday. Thursday morning, Selwyn caught the school bus to work, so as he got off the bus at the corner, he met our neighbor Lilly who had walked her son to the bus. I usually talk to Lilly when I’m out riding, but between bad weather and too much to do, I haven’t been out riding as much as usual, so Lilly asked Selwyn where I’ve been. Selwyn told her what was going on, and then suggested that she come up to the house with him and catch up in person, which she did. Lilly and her husband Mick own a bar about a half mile up the road, and as we were telling her what we’ve been doing about getting the business up and running, her eyes suddenly got big. As we were talking, she had suddenly remembered that Thursday was the liquor board meeting, and she and Mick also had to attend to get their license renewed. We told her not to worry about it, because the meeting wasn’t until that evening, but she insisted it was that morning in San Ignacio, and took off up the road to get Mick out the door to the meeting.

Tom was already moving as fast as he could, so there was no way he was making a 9am meeting in San Ignacio, although at that point he still thought the meeting was that evening in Georgeville. But, he took off, did a few things he had to do in San Antonio, San Ignacio, and Santa Elena, and then headed towards Spanish Lookout. As he was driving down the Western Highway, he realized he was following the Georgeville town chairman, so he followed him to his house to confirm the meeting that night. Not entirely to Tom’s surprise since we’d talked to Lilly that morning, the town chairman informed him that the meeting had in fact been that morning in San Ignacio. Tom prepared to hear what hoops he had to jump through next, and was pleasantly surprised when the chairman told him not to worry, he’d pushed our application through despite not seeing either the newspaper notice or Tom. Tom thanked him profusely and got directions for where he had to go pay, and when he got there he was even more pleasantly surprised. Because we only want to be able to serve alcohol to our guests, we don’t need the full bar license, just the restaurant license – which is half the price of the full bar license. So, that’s done, and all we have to do is pick up the paper certificate next week, which we can copy and submit with our BTB application. One more hurdle cleared!