Trump's golf resort liquor licenses may be one reason he's fighting to block a no-jail hush-money sentence
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo
- In the past week, Trump has fought in four courthouses to block Friday's hush-money sentencing.
- Safeguarding his golf resort liquor licenses may be one reason he's fighting sentencing so hard.
- Sentencing will let NJ officials resume last year's efforts to revoke his licenses in the state.
Over the past week, lawyers for President-elect Donald Trump have fought in four courthouses to make his Friday hush-money sentencing date disappear — and safeguarding the liquor licenses at his three New Jersey golf courses may be one reason for that effort.
Little will change for Trump, practically speaking, if his sentencing proceeds in a Manhattan courtroom despite an 11th-hour US Supreme Court challenge filed by his lawyers. New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has said he's inclined to hand down a zero-punishment sentence. Trump won't need to attend in person.
However, the instant he becomes a sentenced felon, Trump will have received what Jersey liquor officials consider to be a final judgment of conviction.
That finality would allow the state's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control to resume last year's efforts to revoke two of his licenses, an ABC spokesperson told Business Insider on Wednesday.
The ABC began these efforts soon after Trump's May 30 conviction, by pulling the liquor licenses for two of Trump's Jersey clubs — the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck, and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.
In anticipation of a hush-money sentencing initially set for July 11, 2024 the ABC gave the two clubs interim permits to continue selling and serving alcohol and set a July 19, 2024 date for a Trenton liquor license revocation hearing.
As Trump continued to win sentencing delays over the past half year, the ABC, run by Jersey's attorney general's office, has kept those revocation hearing plans on ice.
Meanwhile, the interim licenses at the Colts Neck and Bedminster clubs have remained in effect, "allowing the facilities to continue serving alcohol until a hearing on the renewals is held," the spokesperson told BI Wednesday.
Trump's third Jersey club is the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia, located 45 minutes from that city, in Pine Hill. Last June, the Borough of Pine Hill renewed the club's license for one year, the ABC spokesperson said. Pine Hill officials did not immediately respond when asked Wednesday for their plans regarding that license.
All three licenses are in Donald Trump Jr.'s name, not his father's, but the ABC said last summer that the president-elect is the sole financial beneficiary of those licenses, a finding officials continued to stand by on Wednesday.
"There has been no change to ABC's review that indicates that the president-elect maintains a direct beneficial interest in the three liquor licenses through the receipt of revenues and profits from them, as the sole beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust," the spokesperson said.
State law requires revocation if anyone who either holds or is the primary beneficiary of a liquor license commits a crime of moral turpitude.
"In New Jersey, felony convictions are universally considered to be crimes of moral turpitude," said attorney Peter M. Rhodes, partner at the Haddonfield-based law firm Cahill Wilinsky Rhodes & Joyce.
"Obviously, it's a fairly unusual circumstance when a president-elect is the felon," added Rhodes, whose firm has served for 50 years as counsel to the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association.
The three Jersey golf club licenses are set to expire on June 30. Once Trump's felony status is finalized at sentencing, the ABC can immediately set a hearing, at which Trump's side would have the burden of proving he remains qualified to profit from the licenses.
A spokesperson for The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What about his licenses in other states?
Trump golf resorts in other states also have liquor licenses, but officials in those states have not signaled they are in jeopardy as a result of the president-elect's felony conviction.
Regulators with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control in California, home to the Trump National Golf Club outside Los Angeles, "are not aware of his having any direct or indirect beneficial interests in any ABC license," a spokesperson said Wednesday of the president-elect.
A spokesman for the State Liquor Authority in New York, where Trump has two golf courses, issued a similar response. Officials in Florida, where Trump has three courses, and in North Carolina, where he has one, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.