Macadoodles has a green light to build a new liquor store in Bentonville, but getting permission to sell hard liquor in that store hasn't happened yet.
Tuesday night (March 19) the Bentonville Planning Commission approved the large scale development plan for a Macadoodles on Walton Boulevard.
Liquor permits will be picked on a lottery drawing process and won`t be issued until this summer.
“They`re just getting ahead of the game obviously they got to go through their approval process to get their license,” said Patrick Carroll, Bentonville Planning Commission.
Rick Chrisman with the state Alcoholic Beverage Control says the current law states a franchise can only have one liquor permit, but says there’s legislation that hopes to change that.
Macadoodles already has one and would need one more to open in Bentonviile.
City officials said if Macadoodles doesn’t get a second liquor permit there are other options for the Bentonville location.
“They`re taking a chance but when you look at they do have a store in Springdale and a store in Bella Vista, now with this plan they do have gas pumps at the location and they could potentially operate as a convenience store with that location,” explained Brian Bahr, City of Bentonville Economic Development Manager.
Bahr said they could also sell beer and wine at the new location too.
He said Macadoodles has owned the land for years hoping to develop it.
“They’ve owned the property for probably six to seven years actually when the alcohol initiative was on the last ballot and so they purchased this property to develop a Macadoodles.”
Bahr said Macadoodles has six months to draw a building permit to start construction.
“They're not required to build so if Macadoodles decided that they didn't get a permit and they weren't going to and they didn't feel that it was feasible at this time they can hold up on going further with those plans and not proceed."
Bahr said they can file a six month extension but once that time runs up a decision to build on the property has to be made.