The fate of a liquor license transfer in the City of Ironton remains undecided after equipment failure canceled a video conference hearing with state liquor control officials.

Thursday, November 11, 1999

The fate of a liquor license transfer in the City of Ironton remains undecided after equipment failure canceled a video conference hearing with state liquor control officials.

Ironton City Council members were scheduled to meet Wednesday morning with the Ohio Division of Liquor Control concerning a local business’s license to serve alcoholic beverages.

In September, council members voted down a resolution to provide Pizza Forum with a license that would allow the restaurant to sell beer, wine and other liquor products at the Third Street restaurant.

Councilman Hugh Scott and other members contested the resolution, questioning the need for mixed-liquor beverages at a family restaurant. State procedure designates that once the local government contests the license, members of that government must appeal the state’s decision to grant the license in a hearing.

Rather than traveling to Columbus for the Wednesday hearing, both sides were scheduled to utilize technology in the form of a 9 a.m. video conference at the Department of Human Services.

River Beverages Inc., doing business as Pizza Forum, requested the transfer of a license to serve liquor and alcoholic beverages from the T and H Grill Inc. which closed this year.

Owners of Pizza Forum cannot use the license, however, until the transfer is approved.

The video conference has not yet been rescheduled.

In other business, city council members will hear first reading today of a proposed temporary operating budget for the first quarter of 2000, Ironton Mayor Bob Cleary said.

"Every year the city gathers information and then uses that information from the budgets and finance department to construct a temporary operating budget," Cleary said. "That budget is used to carry us through the last day of the year."

This budget, along with the new projected budget for 2000, will be presented to council at the regular meeting at 6 p.m. today. The meeting will be on the third floor of the Ironton City Center.

Although the budget is early, city leaders said they believe it is an accurate projection.

"We feel like it’s a pretty accurate budget for the first quarter, but no one can predict what the year will hold," Cleary said, adding that temporary budgets are just that – temporary – and therefore subject to changes that will best meet the city’s needs.

"We’re actually ahead of the game this year, so council will have plenty of time to review the projected expenditures," he said. "That way, when it is time to put a permanent budget in place, everyone will have had the time to formulate new ideas and to present them."