Michigan Eyes Special Liquor Licenses For Continuing Care Retirement Communities

It’s 5 O’clock somewhere in Michigan, more specifically coming to your nearest CCRC.  As Michigan grapples with budget cuts and looks to generate more tax revenues, a bill was introduced that would create a new class of liquor license for senior living facilities.  The bill, which stalled on the senate floor, calls to:

• Include a "nonpublic continuing care retirement center" in the classes of vendors that may sell alcoholic liquor at retail, and allow a licensed center to sell and serve beer, wine, and spirits to residents and their guests for on-premises consumption.
• Establish a $600 license fee for a nonpublic continuing care retirement center license.
• Require the Liquor Control Commission (LCC) to grant a nonpublic continuing care retirement center license to an applicant that complied with the bill’s requirements.

• Limit to 20 the number of retirement center licenses that could be issued, and allow the LCC to transfer the license of a retirement center that went out of business. — Require the LCC to publish a notice if an applicant had not existed for at least 10 years before the bill’s effective date.
  Under the bill, "nonpublic continuing care retirement center" would mean a residential community that, as determined by the LCC, meets both of the following:
  • Provides full-time residential housing predominantly for individuals over 62 years of age.
  • Is registered as a "facility" under the Living Care Disclosure Act (i.e., an adult foster care facility, nursing home, retirement home, home for the aged, or a place that undertakes to provide care to an individual for more than one year).

Visit Senate Bill 216.