Liquor License Needs and Desires Petitioning

After you have completed your application and submitted it for consideration, the Licensing Office will set hearing dates for your neighborhood boundaries and for your application public hearing.

The neighborhood boundaries set are typically not less than 1/2 mile radius from the site proposed for a liquor license. The public hearing date will be not less than thirty (30) days from the date of receipt of your complete application by the Licensing Office.

The Beverages Licensing Authority (the "Authority") will set your neighborhood boundaries, usually at the hearing the month before your public hearing. You are welcome to attend your boundary setting hearing or to submit suggested boundaries, but you are not required to do so.

Neighborhood Desires and Reasonable Requirements

Before approving a liquor license application, the Authority must consider the reasonable requirements of the neighborhood and the desires of the adult inhabitants as evidenced by petitions, remonstrance, supporting witnesses or other evidence submitted by the applicant and by residents and business owners/managers of the designated neighborhood. In person witness testimony may be given at the hearing. Letters in favor or opposed to the application should be submitted prior to the hearing.

Door-to-Door Petitions

Although the law does not require that an applicant petition the neighborhood, it is the most common form of evidence presented. Signatures obtained from door-to-door petitioning must be from residents and business owners/managers of the Authority defined neighborhood. Please note that only door-to-door petitions will be considered by the Beverage Licensing Authority. For the resident petitions, all persons signing must be at least 21 years of age and reside in the neighborhood. For the business petitions, all persons signing must be at least 21 years of age and own and/or manage a business in the defined neighborhood. Yau must provide the Authority with sufficient evidence to support its findings that: 1) the reasonable requirements of the neighborhood establish a need for the issuance of the requested license, and 2) that the desires of the adult inhabitants dictate the issuance of the license. The Authority will also be looking to assure that a good sampling of the designated neighborhood was taken.

If you choose to use the petitioning method for proving neighborhood needs and desires, the Resident Petition Form and the Business Petition Form created by the Licensing Office must be used in this process. Each door-to-door petitioner must carry and show at the door a copy of the Designated Neighborhood Map and the Existing Licenses List provided by the Licensing Office. The prepared Petition Results Summary should also be included with your petition signature pages to summarize the results.

Each petitioner who has collected petition results door-to-door must include a signed Affidavit of Circulator that is notarized indicating that he/she personally witnessed each signature appearing on the petition and that, to the best of his/her knowledge, each signature is the signature of the person whose name it purports to be and that the address given opposite the person's name is the true residential or business address of the person signing the petition. Failure to affix a completed affidavit of circulator, including notarization, may cause petition invalidity concerns to be raised by the Authority.

There are professional petitioning firms that you may contract with; however, the decision to use any such firm is entirely yours. If you choose a professional petitioning firm, they must also use the prepared petition forms and results summary. This information is meant only as a guideline provided as a courtesy by the City of Boulder. Applicants are encouraged to consult a private attorney for answers to legal questions or concerns.