Fall is the busy season for hockey. We were anxiously awaiting our liquor license. The paperwork was done and turned in. Waiting for approval is hard, especially when the rink is busy. So we decided to give away beer. Two beer limit, but most people just asked for one. Some of the regular customers were really good about tipping well, even when they didn’t have a beer. But I got the impression they were tipping more than usual – maybe I was imagining it, but that’s how it felt. There were many families who really appreciated our effort in trying to take care of them and they rewarded us for it.
The next thing I knew, I got a Cease and Desist letter from our landlord. The letter stated that they heard we were selling beer without a license which is illegal. They never asked us if the rumors were true or if we had received our license, they just had their lawyers send us a letter. I couldn’t see where any good would come from fighting it, so I immediately packed up all the beer and took it home. Then I sent them an email saying I had complied but that I wished they had talked to us before believing some rumor and taking such drastic action. Later, we found out we had a liquor license during that time. We never received our approval letter; a wine salesman showed us our license on the website. Either way, we weren’t breaking the law and some very lucky customers got free beer.
The question here is, what happened to our liquor license letter? Did it get lost in the mail? Was it sent to our rink address and the rink employees thought it was junk mail? I don’t know. I do know we had to pay a penalty for not reporting liquor sales during the time we didn’t know we had a license. You have to file a report even if your sales are zero. This incident, along with previous encounters with our landlord, made me feel like our landlord would do anything possible to hinder our success.
Learn From My Mistakes 