Peking and Sizzler Burger Restaurant in Kodiak will continue to keep its license despite being closed to the public for years. Now both Kodiak’s city and borough governments are asking the state to revoke the local restaurant’s REPL, restaurant or eating place license.
Earlier this year the Alaska Alcoholic Beverage Control Board renewed the license for Peking Restaurant, allowing the Kodiak business to keep the license active until the end of 2025. But the restaurant can only use the license to serve food with beer and wine if the restaurant finds a new location, using what the state calls an “active-temporarily surrendered license”, as the restaurant is no longer operating in its licensed location at 116 West Rezanof Drive and would have to transfer its license to another location once it finds another building to operate out of.
There are only four such restaurant or eating place licenses that exist in the community and the local Chinese restaurant holds one of them.
The Kodiak City Council sent a letter on October 24 protesting Peking’s continued holding of the license on the grounds of unpaid sales tax and conflicting information in the restaurant’s license renewal application to the state, among other concerns. Peking claimed in its license renewal application that it had generated revenue in 2022 and 2023 from food and alcohol sales but had listed $0 in revenue when filing city sales tax returns for 2023.
During the ABC board’s most recent meeting on Nov. 19 Mayor Pat Branson followed up on the letter asking the state to investigate Peking Restaurant’s application.
“What the city is requesting is to investigate the validity of this application," Branson said. "If there is more information that’s needed from both sides, I mean, I can speak for the city. We can certainly supply that, but that’s our ask.”
But the city had not determined if Peking restaurant had sales tax violations or not before sending a letter to the state. So ABC Board Chair Dana Walukiewicz said there wasn’t much for the board to consider and he wasn’t happy with the city’s request.
“I’m not really feeling like this was the appropriate process that the City of Kodiak used to deal with a licensee, one that has been operating for so long," he said. "Things happen to businesses and such, and I understand the desire that they [the city] would like to have more licenses in operation, but I’m almost kind of appalled at that.”
Although the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board denied the city’s request during its November meeting, the board has yet to take action on a similar ask from the Kodiak Island Borough Assembly.
During the Borough’s last meeting of 2024 on Dec. 19, Assembly member Ryan Sharratt said Peking is not using its restaurant or eating place license.
“That is lost revenue here in Kodiak. And I have to look at this from an economic standpoint," Sharratt said, "and support the letter as written in protest of holding that license.”
The owner’s daughter Stephani Kim-Kurosawa testified at the borough meeting and said they are still trying to find another location to operate out of, which is what she told the borough assembly several months ago. Her mother Sook C. Yun, who is also known as Sung Kim, submitted the license renewal application.
“So as far as where ours go, I wish I had an answer," Kim-Kurosawa told the Borough Assembly. "But I know we’ve done it all. And I have another offer from a land owner that says, ‘hey, if this doesn’t work out, I’ll give you a home.’”
Kim-Kurosawa added that her family has continued to pay for rent and utilities in the Peking Restaurant building on West Rezanof from 2022 into the early months of 2024, while also doing some sporadic catering business into March, despite not having the restaurant open to the public.
Sharratt questioned Kim-Kurosawa about the timeline, asking if the restaurant could be operational in the next three to six months. She was unable to give a definitive answer.
The Kodiak Island Borough Assembly unanimously decided to send a letter to the state requesting Peking Restaurant’s license be revoked, along with the restaurant or eating place license for the Second Floor Restaurant, which is also licensed to Sook C. Yun, the same owner listed with Peking's license.
If the state approves the borough’s request, then potentially two of Kodiak’s limited restaurant or eating place licenses will be freed up.
