- In the past week, Trump has fought in four courthouses to block Friday’s hush-money sentencing.
- Safeguarding his golf resort liquor licenses may be one reason he’s fighting sentencing so hard.
- Sentencing will let NJ officials resume last year’s efforts to revoke his licenses in the state.
Lawyers for President-elect Donald Trump have fought in four courthouses over the last week to get his Friday hush-money sentencing date pushed back — and protecting the liquor licenses at his three New Jersey golf courses could be one of the reasons.
Practically speaking, little will change for Trump if his sentencing takes place in a Manhattan courtroom, despite his lawyers’ 11th-hour US Supreme Court challenge.
Justice Juan Merchan of the New York Supreme Court has stated that he believes a zero-punishment sentence is appropriate. Trump won’t have to attend in person.
However, once Trump is sentenced as a felon, he will have received what Jersey liquor officials consider a final judgment of conviction.
This finality would allow the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control to resume efforts to revoke two of his licenses from last year, according to an ABC spokesperson on Wednesday.
The ABC began these efforts shortly after Trump’s May 30 conviction, pulling the liquor licenses from two of his Jersey clubs, the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.
In anticipation of a hush-money sentencing scheduled for July 11, 2024, the ABC granted the two clubs interim permits to continue selling and serving alcohol while also scheduling a Trenton liquor license revocation hearing for July 19, 2024.
As Trump continued to win sentencing delays over the last half-year, the ABC, which is run by Jersey’s attorney general’s office, put those revocation hearings on hold.
Meanwhile, the Colts Neck and Bedminster clubs’ interim licenses remain in effect, “allowing the facilities to continue serving alcohol until a hearing on the renewals is held,” a spokesperson told BI on Wednesday.
Trump’s third Jersey club is the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia, which is 45 minutes from the city in Pine Hill. The club’s license was renewed for one year by the Borough of Pine Hill in June, according to an ABC spokesperson.
When asked about their plans for the license on Wednesday, Pine Hill officials did not immediately respond.
All three licenses are in Donald Trump Jr.’s name, not his father’s, but the ABC determined last summer that the president-elect is the sole financial beneficiary of those licenses, a conclusion officials maintained on Wednesday.
“There has been no change to ABC’s review that indicates that the president-elect maintains a direct beneficial interest in the three liquor licenses through the receipt of revenues and profits from them, as the sole beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust,” a spokesperson confirmed.
If anyone who holds or is the primary beneficiary of a liquor license commits a moral turpitude crime, their license will be revoked under state law.
“In New Jersey, felony convictions are universally considered to be crimes of moral turpitude,” said attorney Peter M. Rhodes, partner at the Haddonfield-based law firm Cahill Wilinsky Rhodes & Joyce.
“Obviously, it’s a fairly unusual circumstance when a president-elect is the felon,” added Rhodes, whose firm has represented the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association for the past 50 years.
The three Jersey golf club licenses will expire on June 30. Once Trump’s felony status is determined at sentencing, the ABC can immediately schedule a hearing at which Trump’s side will have the burden of proving he is still qualified to profit from the licenses.
A representative from The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What about his licenses in other states?
Trump golf resorts in other states have liquor licenses, but officials there have not indicated that they are in jeopardy as a result of the president-elect’s felony conviction.
Regulators with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control in California, home to the Trump National Golf Club outside Los Angeles, “are not aware of his having any direct or indirect beneficial interests in any ABC license,” a spokesperson for the president-elect said Wednesday.
A spokesman for the State Liquor Authority in New York, where Trump owns two golf courses, had a similar response. Officials in Florida, where Trump has three courses, and North Carolina, where he has one, did not immediately respond to inquiries for comment.
