MLCC On The Road
The MLCC On The Road podcast is brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC). The MLCC On The Road podcast will provide helpful information for businesses, licensees, local governmental units, and anyone interested in the alcoholic beverage industry in Michigan.
The mission of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission is to make alcoholic beverages available for consumption while protecting the consumer and the general public through regulation of those involved in the sale and distribution of these alcohol beverage products.
For more information on the MLCC, please visit our website at www.michigan.gov/lcc. To submit a question or idea for a podcast topic, please email mlccinfo2@michigan.gov.
MLCC On The Road
It's Almost That Time of Year... Liquor License Renewal Time!
In this episode we discuss the annual liquor license renewal process and how all renewal applications will be processed fully online license in 2025.
As noted in this episode, if you are a licensee that needs the Master BID and Master PIN for your business in order to set up your online renewal portal account, you may request the Master BID and Master PIN by emailing mlcclicensingrenewals@michigan.gov. Make sure you include the licensee name and the Business ID (BID) number that appear on your license (the BID number on your license and the Master BID are different numbers). Also, only a member of a licensed LLC, stockholder of a licensed corporation, or an individual licensee may request the Master BID and Master PIN.
The Licensing Division's email address for questions about licenses and permits is lara-mlcc-licensing-information@michigan.gov.
Hosts: Sara Weber and David Marvin
The MLCC On The Road podcast is brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC). For more information on the MLCC, please visit our website at www.michigan.gov/lcc. To submit a question or idea for a podcast topic, please email mlccinfo2@michigan.gov.
The mission of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission is to make alcoholic beverages available for consumption while protecting the consumer and the general public through regulation of those involved in the sale and distribution of these alcohol beverage products.
You're listening to the MLCC On The Road podcast, brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. Good morning, Sara, and welcome back to the MLCC On The Road podcast. Good morning. Good morning. And it looks like we have a special guest here today. Would you go ahead and introduce our guest?
Speaker 00:Yes, I'm excited. We have Jessica Clark in here this morning. She is the supervisor of our renewal and service section. Jess, you want to introduce yourself and give us a little bit of your background? Sure. I'm Jessica Clark. I supervise the Renewal Insurance and Records units. So we deal with the intake of all the applications that come in. We also deal with the other end of it where we issue all the licenses and then renew them each year. And where do you, what's your background? How did you find your way into our office and into our hearts? I actually Joined the state while I was still in high school and did this as a co-op and then started and became a student. Where were you a student at? I was a student at Wage and Hour. What'd you do there? I'm being nosy. Anything they need me to do? Filing their mail, the phone calls. And how old were you when you started? You said you were in high school, but what grade you were in? I was a senior. So my senior year, I had a half day I would spend working, and then I would go to school, the other half.
Speaker 02:That's really cool. Well, we're very glad that you're here. Interesting, yeah. Yeah, you've been here the whole time that I've been here. I think you were at the front desk. front desk when I came in for my interview all those years
Speaker 00:ago. Were you a student here too when you started? Nope, I started as a GOA at the front desk. Gotcha. So for those who don't know, a GOA is a general office assistant. And for a little bit more history for Jess, she actually helped to build our software system. She spent many hours and there was a lot of blood, sweat and tears that went into this. So, you know, Jess does know our system pretty much inside and out. And I'm pretty proud of her for... how far she's come and putting up with us this long.
Speaker 02:Yeah, and both of us worked with her. Obviously, she still works for you over in licensing, but back when I was a deputy director over in licensing, I worked with Jess quite a bit on renewal, and we had some fun renewal years there, and that's what we're actually here to talk about today is renewal, because there's something really exciting, at least we think it's really exciting, for our licensees that's starting in full this year, and And that is the 100% online renewal. Can you give us a little background on that?
Speaker 00:We went to the new system in the fall of 2017. And so 2018 was the first year where we had this new renewal portal with our system. And basically since then, it's been the goal to get to a point where we could be fully online. Everyone could just log into their portal account and renew without having to receive the paper first. The upcoming year is the first year we will actually fully go online.
Speaker 02:So if I'm a licensee and it's time for renewal here in a couple of months in early 2025, I'm not going to get a piece of paper in the mail?
Speaker 00:You'll get a postcard.
Speaker 02:I will get a
Speaker 00:postcard. Just as a reminder that you should get on and renew. There won't be like It won't tell you how much. It won't tell you the breakdown. It's not an invoice. It's just a reminder that you should get on and renew your licenses. Because all that
Speaker 02:information will be on the portal.
Speaker 00:Right.
Speaker 02:How do I get logged into the portal? Obviously, I need a password, I'm assuming. How is that done?
Speaker 00:The first thing you have to do is create a portal account. And to do that, your... given by our office, the master bid and pin for the businesses. Now, if you're a person tied to multiple different businesses, you would need each set of master bid and pin. And how it's set up is that you would have a personal portal account. And under that portal account, you would then link yourself to each business that you're going to renew for. If you have five different businesses, you would have five different sets of master bids and pins. Enter each one and then you would be linked. And you said we sent letters last year to everyone with that information who are current licensees. So what's the process if I just got my license this year? Do I have or should I have received a letter Yep. Yep. and now go to the website and register. So if I'm a licensee who accidentally threw away the letter that we asked them to keep, how do I go about getting that information? Do I need to send a request in to your office? If so, is there an email address that I should use to make that request? And how soon should I do it? As renewal season gets closer, the amount of emails we get drastically increases. And I can only assume that this year will be even more so than the last couple. So if you know you don't have that letter, send an email now or as soon as you can to mlcclicensingrenewalsatmichigan.gov and get you a copy of the letter. All right. We can provide a link.
Speaker 02:Yeah, we'll put that in the description of the podcast so that people will have it right
Speaker 00:there.
Speaker 02:What do they need specifically to to send in if they're asking for their master bid and their master pin?
Speaker 00:You have to be a member, a stockholder. You have to be tied to that business, and we have to be able to see that.
Speaker 02:Somebody who's an authorized signer, somebody who's a member, somebody who's a stockholder or a partner or whatever. You can't
Speaker 00:just be like, oh, I work there, but I can't. Would you give that information out over the phone, or is it something we have to have in writing from them? We want an email.
Speaker 02:What are the... dates and times, when does renewal start and when does renewal end?
Speaker 00:Well, renewals are due by April 30th each year. So it'll be April 30th, 2025, this coming year. The portal, as of right now, should open March 1st. So unless we run into any sort of issues before then that we don't foresee coming, It should open March 1st. So that gives licensees all of March and all of April to get in there and renew. Now, I know that's another common question we get. Why don't we open renewal up in January or even February? You know, that's something I know we always get a lot of, you know, I want to go in and renew. How come I can't go in? Yeah. So there's reporting that has to be done by our finance division. They have to be able to close out books and have monies paid out to, I believe, the local revenues and whatnot. So all that stuff has to be done on the back end before we can open up the portal or open up renewal in general to the public. So that's, you know, just kind of some useful information. And some of it impacts the fees that we'll generate. Exactly. So they load all of their stuff before we're able to. press all of our buttons to create the renewals and make sure they have the correct fees.
Speaker 02:There are a couple things where the fees are actually based off of something that people have to report to us. We have microbrewer certifications, brewer and microbrewer certifications, but mostly microbrewers because we only have a handful of brewer licenses and club member certifications. Can you tell us a little bit about that process and what those types of licensees need to do in advance before they even get their renewal information.
Speaker 00:We're working on those right now. We actually sent those out early November. We send out an annual certification. Hopefully this last year we will actually mail them. After this year, we should have a good updated email for everybody to be able to just email them a copy. That's how we receive most of them back anyway. But we send those out in November. And it just asks club licensees, how many members do you have? And it asks brewers and micro brewers, how many barrels did you produce in the last year? A lot of the micro brewers and brewers don't necessarily return theirs until January, just because they could still be producing through December. And that's fine as long as we have it back. The deadline is February 1st. And the reason for that is all of that information has to be entered into the system before we can generate renewals to calculate the fee correctly. So club fees are directly tied to how many club members they have. And the micro brewers and brewers fees are also tied. tied to how many barrels they produced. What kind of follow-up do we do with those? Well, we mailed them and emailed them already this year. And then come January, we will run a report to see what we don't have, and we will send a follow-up. And then in February, we will follow up again. And then in probably March, we will do a final round of follow-ups before they would be sent to enforcement for non-renewal. So when enforcement goes out to do compliance checks at that time, they will be notified that they did not complete the process for renewal. They did not provide the documentation that was requested by our office, which prevented them from being able to renew. And if they still continue to not provide that information, the license is ultimately terminated. Because they can't. We can't complete the process. We can't do anything yet. We get terminated if they don't renew. And these are things that are required by law. This isn't just our office arbitrarily making a decision. These are things that we need to have. Like you mentioned with the clubs, the change came about this year because we weren't getting a lot of participation in responding to these things. And because the fees are based on the members, which is outlined in statute, we have to follow that. And that's the same thing I wanted to kind of touch on that before too with the renewal expiration, that's set forth by the legislature too in statute. So we don't have a choice in this matter. This is how we have to complete renewal on a yearly basis. And it can be time consuming for your staff. Last year, I think it was a little bit nicer because we had, what, 80% completion online, even with sending things out by mail last year. It's a lot faster.
Unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 00:For everybody when it's online. Right. Kind of touch on that a little bit. You know, what did the process used to look like when we had everything mailed in? What had to happen with those pieces of paper? Yeah. There was a lot of sorting of paper from what I remember. And a lot of that... I was still at the front desk, so I would just help in any way I could, but I dealt with the line of licensees out the door almost on a daily basis, I would say. They would come in, and they would have to wait in line, and we would process their renewal in the office. They would go pay, and then they'd have to come back, and that was... Basically all of April. So it was a very physical process. Every application had to be touched by a staff person and entered. Yeah. we can't do that anymore because we don't have a revenue office in our building. So we, you know, our hands are tied in that regard too. If you know, which again, this coming year, that's not going to be an option because it will have to all be done online. What types of payments can they use for the online system? They can pay with, what is it? ACH. Your bank account. Your bank account information and a credit card. Okay. And or a credit card. And or a credit card.
Speaker 02:Okay. And all forms of credit cards, or at least the major. Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover Card.
Speaker 00:So that kind of leads me into another question with pitfalls with renewal. And I know that there are some issues that people have had in prior years. Some of the issues that we've had, we've done what we can on our end to reduce it. The first year we had credit cards... It had an issue if you're using the same card to pay the same amount for multiple different businesses too quickly. So if you're registered to three different businesses where their fee maybe works out to be exactly the same
Speaker 01:and
Speaker 00:you use the same credit card to pay all of those, the system is going to flag it like it is a duplicate payment. We've reduced the time. down to try and allow where they don't have to wait 15 minutes in between each transaction. I think it was set to five minutes. So as long as they waited five minutes between transaction one and two, it wouldn't, it wouldn't flag it. We don't want to charge somebody multiple times. No, because it takes a while to get a refund.
Speaker 02:And I recall, one of the first times I think there was somebody who had a very sizable license fee into the thousands of dollars and kept on pressing send essentially. And, and there was, I vaguely remember nine charges and, and thankfully we were able to stop that before those charges went through, but that would have been a very sizable amount of money that that person would have, would have. And I think that's kind of the, the reason we put that, that into place is that we didn't want people to accidentally, I didn't think it worked. And so I pressed it again.
Speaker 00:Make sure you have the payment information before you get to the cart. Before you hit the checkout, there have been multiple situations where people get stuck and end up with a processing cart because they walked away to get their payment stuff and it timed out. But then that cart is stuck in processing until we get a message back from the system that tells us that no payment information was actually entered and then we can close it out. But that can take... I feel like it was between 24 to 72 hours was like the window. This is at the manual side of it where someone from our team has to go in and clear that card out. And that's something that is not done by licensing staff. That is someone that works in the software system has to go in and actually close that out because it is encrypted data for lack of a better word. Yeah. So just take your time. If it happens, keep track of it. Don't forget about it. Make a note. Because we have had people in the past that... their licenses ended up being canceled because they forgot to go back. Or make sure your payment got processed. Check your statements. Check your credit card. Check your bank. Make sure that that payment went through. And if you're not sure, follow up with our office within a few weeks or check your status online because you can go back into that and look to see if your renewal was processed.
Unknown:Yep.
Speaker 00:And if you want to talk about that too, Jess, we have a print your license feature on our website or on the renewal as well. So why don't you talk about that and what that process is? If you submit the renewal online, which everybody will this year, in that process at the end, there is an option to print. Basically complete your own renewal and print your license all in one. As long as there are no holds or any notes from us indicating that we have to look at something or verify anything before you're able to do that. Majority of renewals are going to be fine to complete the renewal immediately online. So as soon as you submit it, you should be able to complete and then you can print. And right from your computer, you can print a new copy of your license. What happens come May 1st? Is my license automatically canceled the minute the clock strikes 12 on May 1st if I have not renewed? The next step in the process is actually for enforcement to go out. We run the reports and send them to enforcement. Enforcement will go out and do the noncompliance. On active people who are businesses we had noted as being active. So they were still supposed to be operating. Enforcement will go out and visit them. Anyone who has licenses that are out of state, we We have enforcement officers who will reach out and contact through phone or email as well, correct? Yep. Okay. So in all of, say, May? May into June. May into early June, we spend time doing another follow-up. Like, hey, you've really got to get this in. And during that whole time, we leave the portal open. Because if enforcement shows up, they should still have the avenue to get on and renew. So we have to leave that open. So, no, it's not automatically canceled. But if you're an active licensee and you're trying to still use that license, it's not a good license anymore. Yeah, they shouldn't be using it, is what you're saying. Yeah, and they could be. And that could be a violation. They could be getting more trouble by enforcement when they show up. Right. Because they're still using... An
Speaker 02:expired license. So the takeaway on that is if you haven't paid come April 30th on May 1st, you shouldn't be using that license until you do pay.
Speaker 00:Otherwise, you could be subjected to fines, suspensions, and other penalties.
Speaker 02:You're selling liquor without a license or alcohol in general without a license.
Speaker 00:And that's illegal.
Speaker 02:Okay.
Speaker 00:So once enforcement's done and the compliance parts of that are done, we have a cutoff at that point that we start looking at. And we call that our drop dead date of we cannot allow anything after this date unless it's under very specific circumstances for a licensee to renew or continue to renew at that point. And then at that time, we shut off renewal and anything that's remaining, we start the process of closing out administratively and canceling those licenses. And that's kind of where I step in. And if your license didn't get renewed and I can't You can't find any case that would have prevented you from renewing. So that means our office sent everything. You were notified. There was nothing in the system that prevented you from being able to get on and timely renew. We have no other recourse but to cancel that license for non-renewal or terminate it. That's just, it's how the law works. We don't have a reinstatement process. There's not an appeal process. If you respond to us and you would like to let us know of mitigating circumstances or why you feel that you were prevented from renewing timely, that maybe steps that we didn't take or, you know, we check, we audit the files, we make sure we send things to the correct address. And if any of those things happened, then we will, there is a process for bringing it back. It does not happen very often though. Like I said, there are very specific cases that we can bring a license back for, but the majority of them, if you let it lapse, it's gone. So you will have to look for a new license. You will have to look at buying another license if you need one. If you had a seller on the line, they're going to have to look for someone else, or I'm sorry, a buyer. I said that backwards. Unfortunately, that's how that works.
Speaker 02:But thankfully, Sara, we don't have that many that actually end up that
Speaker 00:way. No, no. And a lot of them, you know, they purposely let it lapse, you know, because they don't need it anymore. And, you have value and some don't. If you're not sure if a license is something that has value that you hold, contact us and we'll talk to you about it. There's other licenses that, based on how they were issued, they can't be escrowed and they can't be moved. And so sometimes the value of them is diminished if the property is no longer going to be used for that. So again, any questions you have, you can contact our office. Jess had mentioned the licensing renewal email address. We also have a licensing information email box too. We can provide both links on this podcast information too. And anytime, ask any questions that you may have.
Speaker 02:Well, thank you, Jessica, for joining us today and the information that you've given us on renewals. And we hope that the renewal season goes well for you and your staff and for all of the MLCC staff that are involved. And until next time, we will see you again on MLCC On The Road. The MLCC On The Road podcast was brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. For more information on the Michigan Liquor Control Commission, please visit our website at michigan.gov slash lcc. Thank you for listening.
