Deal allows liquor license for owners of Somers pub

After an unforeseen snafu, a local couple Wednesday received their liquor license for the pub they plan to open in Somers.

"Now, we just gotta order all our beer equipment - we weren't doing any of that until this (license) came in," Tim Quigley said.

Quigley and his wife, Nancy Skene, completed the requisite health, building and fire-code approval inspections just days ago after working around-the-clock to get their pub, in the old North Lake diesel building, ready for state approval.

The couple's application for a county liquor license stalled during June, when the city of Kalispell annexed the Old School Station industrial park, which is about two miles south of town. The annexation brought the Quigley and Skene property within five miles of the city limits - and inside the area that the Montana Department of Revenue mandates a city license.

The pub owners needed to get their inspections completed before a license was issued.

Montana Venture Partners, developers of Old School Station, asked the Kalispell City Council to change the effective date of annexation from June to Aug. 15 to give Quigley and Skene a window in which to receive their county license rather than have to apply for one of the scarce and expensive city licenses.

Quigley and Skene plan to open the pub, 5215 U.S. 93, in Somers in two to three weeks.

The couple and their attorney appealed to the City Council several times before they and developers Andy Miller and Paul Wachholz agreed on the annexation date change as a compromise. The pub owners previously had asked that the council revoke the annexation until they got their license.

Other local business owners have told the council that the annexation is causing them trouble with their county liquor license plans, but neither the council nor the developers have addressed their concerns at council meetings.

Quigley and Skene, though, were the only business owners who had been issued conditional approval for a license from the Montana Department of Revenue before the annexation occurred.

Reporter Camden Easterling can be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at ceasterling@dailyinterlake.com.