HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board on Tuesday issued an invitation for bids to award 30 expired restaurant licenses in the fifth license auction since Act 39 became effective in August 2016.
This auction includes one license in each of the following 30 counties: Allegheny, Berks, Blair, Bucks, Cambria, Cameron, Clearfield, Columbia, Dauphin, Delaware, Erie, Lackawanna, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Lycoming, McKean, Mercer, Mifflin, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Philadelphia, Schuylkill, Somerset, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Venango, Warren, and York.
The fifth auction will again use a sealed bid process, which has successfully awarded 165 licenses in the previous four auctions.
Bids for the 30 licenses offered in this restaurant license auction are due by noon April 19. Bids will be opened April 27, and auction winners will be determined soon thereafter.
The minimum bid for each license is $25,000, and each bid must be accompanied by a bid surety of $5,000 or 5 percent of the total bid amount — whichever is higher — to avoid frivolous and underfunded bids.
The highest responsive bidder for each license will win the right to submit an application for the license to the PLCB within six months of auction award. If bid payment is not received within two weeks of auction award, the second-highest bidder will have the opportunity to apply for the license. Bids will be held in escrow by the PLCB, pending approval of the license application.
