Las Vegas Wants Your Brew Pubs

Las Vegas wants to makes it easier for you to create your dream brew pub. Two new city ordinances have been proposed to upgrade local licensing regulations.

The new alcoholic beverage license categories are "beer and wine room" and "ancillary brew pub." The latter hopes to encourage microbrewers to make and sell their wares in their own bars and would dramatically lower the operating license initiation fee. Formerly, a brewer needed a hefty $75,000 "origination charge" before they could set up a tavern. That would be scrapped under the new guidelines and replaced with semi-annual fee of $500 or 1 percent of gross income, whichever is higher. They do require your handmade beverages only account for 49 percent of your income. The city believes at least one new pub will be applying for this category this year.

Downtown's newest upcoming brew pub, Banger Brewing, is under construction at Fremont Street's Neonopolis. The brewers recently posted to their Facebook page they should open "aug/sept if all goes well."

The second ordinance change would create a new category, "beer and wine room," restricting new owners to only serve alcohol that can be consumed on premises and these establishments would be prohibited from applying for a gaming license, a simpler license category requiring much less red tape. Application would require a $7,500 initial fee and $700 semi-annual license payment.

The proposed ordinances will be reviewed by the Recommending Committee on April 2.
· All Coverage of Banger Brewing [~ELV~]
Fremont East [Photo: Bradley Martin]