Liquor license reform was a top agenda priority for Governor Murphy this year.
But as we tick down to the end of the legislative season, there's been very little movement on any liquor licensing reforms.
One reason lawmakers can't agree on how to address brewery regulations in the state.
Murphy said he'd conditionally veto any bill that included breweries because he wants those regulations included with broader liquor license reforms.
But there's no clear answer on how to handle liquor license owners who've already spent millions to purchase them.
Ted Goldberg takes a closer look at what these regulations mean for their industry.
Frank's Shoe Store closed about five, six years ago and no one has filled the vacuum in town.
Chatham Mayor Thaddeus Kobylarz hopes something can fill this vacant building downtown.
Something needs to replace that.
Otherwise, you're going to have a a dying downtown.
We have basically a contract doing retail and service enterprises here.
There's a contraction of that sector of the economy in our downtown that started with the rise of malls over 40 years ago, but was exacerbated by the onset of e-commerce.
The building will be knocked down and replaced in January.
There's no new tenant, but Kobylarz's heard ideas.
I've had a number of residents come up to me and say that, Mayor, why doesn't Chatham have a wine bar?
That would be tremendous for this town.
Chatham only has four liquor licenses to hand out to bars and restaurants and they're all in use.
But more licenses could soon become available if state lawmakers address liquor license reform during the lame duck session.
New Jersey setup generally allows one liquor license for every 3000 people in a city or town, which can cause scarcity and drive up the price to get one.
You probably put two or 300,000 into the building and then the liquor license costs $500,000, which we had to pay for in cash.
Peter Schwabe opened Chatham's River Grill in 2006.
I liquidated my 41k to purchase the liquor license, and then with the inside I had some money saved.
He put up about three quarters of that himself.
My liquor license now is worth a million, maybe a million and a half.
That's my retirement.
That's my 401K.
Schwab is concerned about what would happen if liquor licenses can be bought and sold cheaply.
He doesn't mind if Governor Murphy makes changes statewide as long as he's compensated.
If he pays us for what our liquor licenses are worth, I don't care what he does.
He could I. I don't care about competition because I know my product's good.
Governor Murphy's office says comprehensive liquor license reform is why he plans to conditionally veto a bill that would ease regulations on breweries.
Murphy says he supports the bill, but brewers still feel like bargaining chips.
The governor says he supports our bill, which is confounding to us because we gave him a solution to a problem that his own administration put us in.
And he seems not to want to take a gift that has it wrapped with a bow on top and instead included a proposal that seemingly has no support from the legislature.
I feel like they're kind of using that as a chip and essentially unfairly for us because we had done the work to get that bill through.
Cindy DeRama co-owns Twin Elephant in Chatham.
She says New Jersey's new rules on breweries stifle her business.
They include regulating the size of televisions and how many public events can be held each year.
Live music, trivia nights, anything edgy, even educational nights.
DeRama hopes a solution can be found before January 1st, when the new rules are set to come back into effect.
To create another barrier for local businesses to, you know, like Thrive is really detrimental right now because especially with how the economy is right and and, you know, everyone's just feeling feeling it a lot.
That brewery bill was passed with unanimous support in the state Senate and assembly.
But it might not mean anything if lawmakers and Governor Murphy can't agree on a solution before the end of the lame duck session.
In Chatham, I'm Ted Goldberg, NJ Spotlight News.