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So what’s been going on at the Local Liquor Control Commission with the license and appeal process in those two months? McHugh isn’t entirely sure, because the process is anything but transparent. “It’s a quagmire at best,” he says. “And I’m standing in the quagmire, and I can’t tell you exactly how it works.”
Soon after that, the president of the River North Residents Association, Brian Israel (who’d been out of town for the previous month), brokered a meeting between McHugh and members of the board at the nearby condo the Caravel–McHugh’s only opposition, as he found out. The board members were concerned that people standing in line to get into nearby clubs the Joynt, Vision, and Excalibur would buy liquor at McHugh’s store and drink it on the street. To avoid this, they proposed a closing time of 8 PM rather than 10, promising to drop its opposition to the store if McHugh agreed to the change.
