Request By:
Robert W. Johnson
ABC Administrator
City of Ashland
P. O. Box 1839
Ashland, Kentucky 41101
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
Mr. Perry J. Hollan has appealed to the Attorney General under KR 61.880 your denial of his request to inspect and obtain a copy of certain public records. The records are described as follows:
"Applications for a beer distributor's license of the following companies or individuals:
(1) Ashland Beer Distributor's Inc.
(2) Ashland Beverage, Inc.
(3) Boyd County Supply and Distributing Co.
(4) Lee Jackson, Inc.
(5) Mid-State Distributing Co.
(6) The Pioneer Beverage Co., Inc.
(7) Log Cabin Distributor, Inc."
In denying Mr. Hollan's request you gave the following reasons:
"KRS 61.878, Paragraph 1, sub paragraph (a) and (b) and on the policy of the Commonwealth of Kentucky Alcoholic Beverage Control Board."
OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
It is our opinion that an application for a local distributor's license is a public record which is subject to the mandatory requirements of public inspection under the Open Records Law, KRS 61.870-61.884, for the following reasons:
1. We do not believe that the public disclosure of the application constitutes a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy under KRS 61.878(1)(a). We note that in this case all of the applicants listed are corporations and the privacy exemption to the Open Records Law applies expressly to persons and to "personal privacy" . Nor do we believe that the applications are exempt by KRS 61.878(1)(b) which exempts records confidentially disclosed to an agency "for the grant or review of a license to do business and if openly disclosed would permit an unfair advantage to competitors of the subject enterprise."
2. It is our opinion that the State ABC Board is not authorized to have a policy which does not allow inspection of beer distributor applications until they have either been approved or denied. We note that KRS 243.360 requires every person applying for an alcoholic beverage license from the state shall publish a notice of his intention to apply for a license and "the advertisement shall state the name and address of the applicant if he is an individual, the names and addresses of the members of a partnership if the applicant is a partnership, as well as the name of the business and its address, or, if the applicant is a corporation, the names and addresses of the principle officers and directors of the corporation as well as the name and address of the corporation itself, the location of the premises for which the license is sought, and the type of license to be applied for." Further, there is no administrative regulation requiring ABC to keep applications confidential. 804 KAR 4.
It is, therefore, our opinion that any person may inspect and obtain a copy of any application for a beer distributor's license made to a state or local agency. We conclude that you wrongfully denied Mr. Hollan's request to inspect and obtain a copy of the above described documents.
As provided by KRS 61.880, you may challenge this opinion in the circuit court. As directed by that statute we are sending a copy of this opinion to the requester.