By ROBERT LINNEHAN
The signatures have been collected and for the second time in five years Moorestown residents might be taking a vote on allowing the sale of liquor at the Moorestown Mall.
Representatives from the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust submitted two petitions to the township clerk on Friday, July 30, to have two referendums be placed on the November election ballot for the allowance of liquor to be sold at fine dining restaurants at the Moorestown Mall.
Chris Russell, a PREIT representative, said that the first referendum would ask voters to approve the sale of liquor in Moorestown Township. If the township clerk declares that the petition has enough signatures, he said, the referendum will be placed on the ballot.
The second referendum question would ask residents to approve the sale of liquor by the glass at only fine dining restaurants in the Moorestown Mall. It would restrict liquor sale to just the mall, he said, and would not be allowed anywhere else in the township.
The second question is a bit different than the first, Russell said, because Moorestown Township is a Faulkner Act town, the council can decide to act immediately on the referendum question and pass it. However, if the question is not acted upon, the referendum will be posed to the township voters in the November election.
If approved, six liquor licenses would likely be created, Russell said. An early professional revenue analysis estimates that the one time sale of the licenses would bring in about $4 million for the township, Russell said, plus about $500,000 in annual revenues.
Coupled with the possible addition of a 12-screen movie theater, Russell said PREIT is banking on the sale of liquor to boost visits to the mall and increase its revenue stream. Just take a lot, he said, at what was accomplished at the Cherry Hill Mall — another PREIT owned facility — when restaurants were allowed to sell alcohol.
“Bringing these kind of establishments into the facility will help reverse the decline of the mall,” Russell said. “If it continues to decline, it could have a negative impact on the homeowners who would have to pick up the slack of the mall.”
The mall, he said, currently has 27 vacancies. He said there have been no talks at all of possibly selling the mall if the liquor referendums do not pass.
If history repeats itself, however, PREIT is going to have an uphill battle to see liquor being sold at the mall. When first broached in 2007, Moorestown voters overwhelmingly voted against the referendum, defeating it by more than 2,000 votes at the polls.
It’s important, Russell said, for PREIT to reach as many voters as possible during its next phase. The organization will soon be entering its “education” phase and hopes to meet with many township groups and residents to discuss the positives of liquor sales at the mall, he said.
