Sizzler Burger and Peking Restaurant, a longtime eatery in downtown Kodiak, has lost its support from the City of Kodiak to renew its Restaurant or Eating Place License [REPL]. That’s after the city council sent a letter to the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board last week urging the board to reject Peking’s license renewal.
During Thursday’s regular meeting on Oct. 24, the city council laid out the reasons for protesting the Chinese restaurant’s license. Councilmember Annika Woods said the restaurant currently has unpaid sales tax, fire code violations, and more issues that should be outlined in the letter to the state.
“It’s my line of thinking that more information going before Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office [AMCO] is better than less. And I don’t want to make assumptions about what AMCO knows or doesn’t know, and what goes before the board," Woods said. "So my thinking is the city staff have had issues that, to my knowledge, were not and probably could not be remedied, so I think they should still be documented. So that’s why I made those proposals.”
Earlier this summer during its Aug. 8 meeting, the council decided to give the restaurant 60 more days to take care of its unpaid sales tax and other outstanding issues.
But by Thursday’s meeting on Oct. 24, the council had decided to officially protest Peking’s license renewal. The restaurant has not been in operation for years, and it holds one of the city’s four Restaurant or Eating Place Licenses, which allows it to serve beer and wine along with food.
Sung Kim, who is the most recent business owner for Peking Restaurant according to the state’s business license database, did not give public comment during the Oct. 24 meeting.
Ultimately the rest of the council agreed with Woods and voted to add those details into the final letter, before authorizing the city clerk to send the letter of protest to the state. Although, Councilmember John Whiddon said the license renewal likely won’t be affected until the restaurant’s license expires at the end of next year.
“So part of the problem here is that the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office [AMCO] is 10 to 11 months behind in the license processing. So the license period is 2024-2025. So the license number 2611 [Peking’s] license was approved, but it never came before us, because AMCO is so far behind. So we didn’t even see that approval or the request for approval until September," Whiddon stated. "We missed the protest period because we delayed it 60 days, thinking all we need to do was to cure the sales tax issue, when really, by waiting 60 days we allowed the protest period to expire. What this [letter] allows us to do is to protest not 2024 but 2025."
Ultimately the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board [ABC] has the final say in the matter. The board is scheduled to meet on Nov. 19, but the agenda has not yet been updated and doesn’t currently include Peking Restaurant’s license or the city’s letter of protest.
A few other Kodiak businesses had their licenses on the agenda for ABC’s most recent meeting in September such as Aquamarine Café and Suites, which saw its renewal application approved to continue holding its REPL. The other local licenses that were approved for renewal by the ABC board at last month’s meeting include the Chart Room, Tony’s Bar, and Double Shovel Cider.
