Glendale committee approves Speedway beer-only license, recommends 2025 renewals to council

The Glendale Legislative, Judiciary and Finance Committee approved an application from Speedway LLC for a class A (beer-only) off-premise retailer license for the Speedway at 6170 North Green Bay Avenue and recommended the city council consider the citywide alcohol-beverage license renewals scheduled to take effect July 1, 2025.

Carl, a city staff member, told the committee that police department background checks and staff review were completed and that staff recommended approval of the class A fermented-malt-beverage (beer-only) license for the Speedway. Attorney Baer clarified the local code distinction between the two similarly named license types, saying the code prohibits a full intoxicating-liquor class A license for convenience stores, gas stations or pharmacies but does not bar issuance of a fermented-malt-beverage license to those businesses. “They’re not gonna be allowed to sell hard liquor,” Attorney Baer said, referring to the applicant’s restriction to beer sales.

Alderman Lukovich moved to approve the Speedway application; Alderman Schmelzling seconded. The committee approved the application by voice vote.

On a related item, city staff (Mister Warwick) asked the committee to recommend that the common council approve the roster of alcohol-beverage license renewals set to begin July 1, 2025. Warwick said background checks had been completed and that license applications currently expire June 30, 2025. He warned that several businesses with “unabated North Shore fire issues” would not receive licenses if the fire-code problems were not corrected by June 30, 2025.

Committee members identified a problem with the renewal packet: King Crab Shack appeared on an earlier packet list but was missing from staff’s updated list after a conversion between file formats. Staff said the King Crab Shack had not filed a renewal and that the packet had been edited during the Word-to-Excel conversion, which removed some names. The committee amended its recommendation to exclude King Crab Shack from the batch forwarded to the council.

The committee approved a recommendation that the common council consider the 2025 renewals (minus King Crab Shack) at the council meeting scheduled in two weeks. No roll-call tally was recorded in the committee minutes; actions were taken by voice vote.

Next steps: the Speedway fermented-malt-beverage license was approved by the committee and will appear on the common council agenda for final action; the committee’s recommendation on renewals will be presented to the common council, which will consider renewal approvals at its meeting in two weeks.