NJ Residents Narrowly favor Liquor License Expansion

Those who prefer BYOB much less supportive

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, February 14, 2023 – When Governor Murphy proposed expanding the number of liquor licenses in New Jersey, he may have stepped into a minefield. According to the latest results from the FDU Poll, 50 percent of New Jersey residents support the governor’s proposal, with 38 percent opposed, and 12 percent on the fence. The poll also shows that the state is evenly split between those who prefer to bring their own bottles to a restaurant, those that prefer to buy from the restaurant, and those who don’t care either way, but BYOBers are much less supportive of the proposal.

“Liquor licenses may seem like too minor an issue for the Governor to include in the State of the State address,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of Government and Politics at FDU, and the director of the poll. “But this is a wickedly contentious measure.”

Currently, liquor licenses are issued by the state based on the population of a municipality: in the 1940s, this was one license for every 1,000 residents; it was later increased to one for every 3,000 residents in the 1960s. Municipalities with more licenses than would have been allowed under the more restrictive 1960s laws were grandfathered in, resulting in municipalities like Newark having more licenses than are currently needed. In other areas, where restaurants have sprung up, but populations have remained stable, the licenses have become a valuable commodity: in Short Hills, for instance, a liquor license for a Cheesecake Factory fetched more than $2 million, and in areas like Montclair, $1 million is not uncommon.

This means that those licenses are a valuable asset for some of those that hold them: increasing the number of licenses would devalue one of the main assets of restaurants in these areas. The scarcity of liquor licenses has also helped municipalities keep chain restaurants out, reducing competition for local eateries. Proponents of expansion argue that the high cost of licenses has kept restaurants from opening in many parts of New Jersey: alcohol sales are a major contributor to the profits of most restaurants, and the lack of them may be a factor in holding back downtown revitalization projects. The rules also mean that BYOB restaurants are more common in New Jersey than in neighboring states, which can reduce the cost of eating out. A 2018 Assembly bill that looked to create a new class of liquor licenses in order to help ameliorate the issue died in committee.

“What’s especially tricky about this is that it isn’t a statewide problem,” said Cassino. “In some places, they’re no more expensive than they are anywhere else; in others, it’s a million dollars. Any change is necessarily going to hurt some people more than others.”

Perhaps because the proposed liquor license reform is linked with Murphy, Democrats are more supportive of it than Republicans (54 percent versus 43 percent), despite the fact that Democrats are more likely to say that they prefer bringing their own alcohol to restaurants (36 percent) than Republicans (31 percent).

“On issues that people just don’t know much about, they try to make things easier with partisanship,” said Cassino. “Knowing Murphy supports something is a strong signal to both Democrats and Republicans about what they should think.”

Overall, the state is evenly split between those who prefer to bring their own bottles (33 percent), those who prefer if the restaurant serve alcohol (32 percent), and those without a preference either way (33 percent). Older New Jerseyans, especially those 65 and above, are the most likely to say that they prefer BYOB (42 percent), and the least likely to say that they prefer to buy from the restaurant (18 percent). In contrast, 41 percent of residents 30 and under say that they prefer when a restaurant has a liquor license, and only 32 percent would rather BYOB.

Predictably, those residents who prefer to buy alcohol from the restaurant are more likely to say that the state should expand the number of licenses: 66 percent support the measure, compared with 44 percent of BYOBers, who are split on the issue (44 percent in favor, 44 percent opposed, and the remainder saying that they don’t know).

The poll also showed substantial regional variation in attitudes towards liquor license expansion, with residents in the northern part of the state much more supportive than those in southern areas. In the Northeast, Northwest and Urban Core regions, more than half of residents support the measure; in coastal counties, support is 46 percent, and in South Jersey, just 39 percent support expansion.

“People who are losing something are always going to fight harder than people who are looking to get something,” said Cassino. “If I had spent a million bucks on a license, I wouldn’t let the state devalue it without a fight.”

Methodology

The survey was conducted between February 1 and February 6, 2023, using a certified list of adult New Jersey residents carried out by Braun Research of Princeton, New Jersey. Respondents were randomly chosen from the list, and contacted via either live caller telephone interviews, or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 808 respondents. 235 of the surveys were carried out via live caller telephone interviews on landlines, and the remainder (573) were done on a web platform via weblinks sent via SMS to cell phones, or via live caller cell phone interviews. Surveys were conducted only in English.

The data were weighted to be representative of the population of adult NJ residents, as of the 2020 US Census. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education and race/ethnicity.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicate the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, calculated design effects are approximately 1.3.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 808 residents is +/-3.5 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-4.6 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.

This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

808 New Jersey Residents

Figures are weighted to overall voter characteristics from the 2020 US Census. Respondents who refused to answer a demographic item are not included.

Man                                 47%                 N = 381

Woman                             51%                 N = 412

Some Other Way           2%                  N = 15

18-30                           17%                N = 136

31-44                           29%                 N = 232

45-64                           33%                 N = 264

65+                               21%                 N = 168

Democrat (with leaners)              50%                 N = 357

Independent                                  15%                 N = 110

Republican (with leaners)           35%                 N = 246

White                                            55%                N = 443

Black                                               11%                N = 92

Hispanic/Latino/a                                      18%                N = 145

Asian                                        9%                  N = 69

Other/Multi-racial                                     2%                  N = 15

No college degree                       55%                N = 447

College degree or more              45%                N = 350

Question Wording and Order

NJ1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Phil Murphy is handling his job as governor?

1. Approve
2. Disapprove
3. Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused [Vol]

NJ2. I’m going to describe some bills that might be considered by the state legislature this year. For each, tell me whether you would support that bill, oppose that bill, or if you don’t know.

A. Currently, high schools in New Jersey start as early as 7:30 in the morning. One bill would require that high schools at 8:30 or later. Students would stay later to get the same amount of class time.

1. Support bill
2. Oppose bill
3. Not sure
4. Don’t Know [vol]
5. Refused [vol]

[NJ2B-NJ6 Held for future release]

I’m going to read you the names of some people who might run for Governor of New Jersey in the next election. Some are already well known, and some aren’t. For each, tell me if you’ve heard of them, and, if you have, whether you have a positive or negative view of them.

[Respondents are randomly assigned to get the candidates in order A or B]

Order A:

1. Newark Mayor Democrat Ras Baraka
2. Republican State Senator Holly Schepisi
3. Former Republican Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli
4. Jersey City Mayor Democrat Steven Fulop
5. [Democratic/Republican] [Mayor/Assemblywoman] Paula Hawkins*
6. [Democratic/Republican] [Mayor/Assemblyman] Vance Kassebaum*
7. Current first lady Democrat Tammy Murphy
8. Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill
1. Republican Talk Show Host Bill Spadea
10. Republican State Senator Mike Testa
11. Lieutenant Governor Democrat Sheila Oliver
50. Former Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney

Order B:

1. Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill
2. Republican State Senator Holly Schepisi
3. Current first lady Democrat Tammy Murphy
4. [Democratic/Republican] [Mayor/Assemblywoman] Paula Hawkins*
5. Lieutenant Governor Democrat Sheila Oliver
6. Newark Mayor Democrat Ras Baraka
7. Former Republican Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli
8. Jersey City Mayor Democrat Steven Fulop
1. [Democratic/Republican] [Mayor/Assemblyman] Vance Kassebaum*
10. Republican Talk Show Host Bill Spadea
11. Republican State Senator Mike Testa
50. Former Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney

[Hawkins and Kassebaum are made up names, used as baselines. They are randomly assigned across Dem/Rep and Mayor/Assembly Member]

For each:

C1. Have you heard of [insert name here]?

1. Yes
2. No
3. Refused [vol]

C2. [If C1 is “yes”] Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of them, or do you not know enough about them to have an opinion?

1. Favorable
2. Unfavorable
3. Don’t know enough to have an opinion
4. Refused [vol]

NJ2. I’m going to describe some bills that might be considered by the state legislature this year. For each, tell me whether you would support that bill, oppose that bill, or if you don’t know.

1. Currently, high schools in New Jersey start as early as 7:30 in the morning. One bill would require that high schools at 8:30 or later. Students would stay later to get the same amount of class time.
2. [Held for future release]

[For each]

6. Support bill
7. Oppose bill
8. Not sure
9. Don’t Know [vol]
10. Refused [vol]

NJ4. [Half of respondents get this here, half get it before NJ3] When you go to a restaurant, do you prefer it if you can bring your own bottle, or if the restaurant serves its own alcohol?

1. Prefer BYOB
2. Prefer restaurant to serve alcohol
3. No Preference/ Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused  [Vol]

NJ3. Governor Murphy has proposed increasing the number of liquor licenses for restaurants in New Jersey. [This would make it easier for restaurants to serve alcohol, and encourage more chain restaurants to open]. But [this could hurt some restaurants that bought licenses for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.] [Rotate order of pros/cons] What do you think? Should the state expand the number of liquor licenses, or not?

1. State should expand the number of licenses
2. State should not expand the number of licenses
3. Don’t know [Vol]
4. Refused [Vol]

NJ4. [Half of respondents get this here, half get it before NJ3] When you go to a restaurant, do you prefer it if you can bring your own bottle, or if the restaurant serves its own alcohol?

1. Prefer BYOB
2. Prefer restaurant to serve alcohol
3. No Preference/ Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused  [Vol]

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