RETAIL : Restaurateur’s Hassle Over Liquor License Gets Hard to Swallow

All Mike Hoskinson wanted was a liquor license. What he got was a wad of red tape that he fears could spell trouble for his family-run restaurant in Newport Beach.

It all started in September when Hoskinson and his mother, Joyce, both applied for a lottery among restaurateurs seeking to expand their licenses to allow full bar service, rather than being limited to beer and wine.

Along the way, however, the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board “found this little glitch.” Since it was first licensed in 1969, the Hoskinsons’ Lorenzo’s Spaghetti Bender restaurant had incorporated, nullifying the license issued to it as a sole proprietorship. So the company had to reapply for the lottery.

That, of course, meant paperwork and hassle. But the bigger problem was a state requirement that, because of the license change, Hoskinson post a window sign announcing in big black letters “Change of Ownership”--even though ownership hadn’t changed.

Hoskinson said he worried that the drivers of the 130,000 cars that pass by every day on Pacific Coast Highway, especially his most loyal customers, will think that his grandfather, (Papa) Lorenzo Pasini, the restaurant’s founder, had sold the place. So next to the state-ordered sign, Hoskinson put up his own notice explaining the situation.

Mary Anne Eckhoff, a supervising investigator in the ABC’s Santa Ana office, said that she understands Hoskinson’s frustration, but “we’re just trying to get everything straight.”

And the lottery?

Hoskinson and his mother both won, but ABC refused to give them the licenses, the second of which would have been used for another eatery that they want to open in Huntington Beach. Reason: Only one person from a single establishment may apply.