Yes. That is why I called ABC.
If you're really curious, I want to get a Type-86 tasting license for my store. The ABC site[1] says my kind of store (<5000sqft) is "generally" not qualified, which makes it sound like there are exceptions (spoiler: there are).
The first agent told me that the license is not an add-on, meaning I'd have to complete a very long and expensive process to obtain the license with the risk of getting denied. This was wrong. It's an add-on.
The second agent told me that I was not eligible because I have less than 5000sqft of space. Not true (see below).
The third told my wife that 75% of the items in our store need to be alcoholic beverages to qualify. Wrong again.
I finally asked my legal LLM, which pointed me to the statute, which says, "Type-86 ... can be issued to businesses which also hold off-sale retail licenses [that] earn at least 75 percent of their total gross sales from the sale of alcoholic beverages." Ultimately, it comes down to how ABC interprets and enforces this law, so I really expected to get some clarity from them rather than complete falsities.
[1]: https://www.abc.ca.gov/instructional-tasting-license-for-off...
If you're really curious, I want to get a Type-86 tasting license for my store. The ABC site[1] says my kind of store (<5000sqft) is "generally" not qualified, which makes it sound like there are exceptions (spoiler: there are).
The first agent told me that the license is not an add-on, meaning I'd have to complete a very long and expensive process to obtain the license with the risk of getting denied. This was wrong. It's an add-on.
The second agent told me that I was not eligible because I have less than 5000sqft of space. Not true (see below).
The third told my wife that 75% of the items in our store need to be alcoholic beverages to qualify. Wrong again.
I finally asked my legal LLM, which pointed me to the statute, which says, "Type-86 ... can be issued to businesses which also hold off-sale retail licenses [that] earn at least 75 percent of their total gross sales from the sale of alcoholic beverages." Ultimately, it comes down to how ABC interprets and enforces this law, so I really expected to get some clarity from them rather than complete falsities.
[1]: https://www.abc.ca.gov/instructional-tasting-license-for-off...