Latest news with #Haddonfield-based
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's NJ golf courses can sell liquor for 6 more months, but he can't pocket the cash just yet
Liquor licenses for two of Trump's NJ golf courses remain under review due to his felony conviction. On Tuesday, state officials said they have extended the two licenses for another six months. Trump can't touch any liquor-sale proceeds for the clubs at Colts Neck and Bedminster — for now. The Champagne will keep flowing for another six months at two of President Donald Trump's New Jersey golf courses, despite his felony conviction. For now, though, the Trump Organization is barred from touching the proceeds. Officials with the New Jersey Attorney General's Office said Tuesday that they have issued temporary, half-year extensions for the liquor licenses at the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. The last-minute extensions were necessary to keep the drinks flowing while state officials continue to review Trump's application to renew the licenses for the coming year. Without the extension, the licenses at the Colts Neck and Bedminster clubs would have expired outright on Monday, June 30. But the extensions come with heavy strings attached — including that Trump, as a convicted felon, and any other corporate members of the clubs' LLCs must keep their hands out of the bar tills at the two clubs indefinitely. The attorney general's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control is requiring that proceeds from the two clubs' liquor licenses be held in untouched accounts kept separate from those for the clubs' other income. It's a constraint that Peter Rhodes — a lawyer who's specialized for 30 years in New Jersey liquor licensing — says he's never seen imposed. Usually, when a license owner or beneficiary becomes a felon, they are simply given time to walk away from the license, Rhodes said, usually by selling or transferring their interest to a non-felon. "One might infer that the ABC is struggling with how to handle this issue — with how to deprive a felon of the proceeds of their license," he told BI. "In short, I find it peculiar," said Rhodes, whose Haddonfield-based firm, Cahill, Wilinski, Rhodes & Joyce, has served for 50 years as counsel to the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association. "What they don't say is what happens to that money if, in fact, they find that he is disqualified," Rhodes added. "They can't just confiscate it." A spokesperson for New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin told Business Insider that the special conditions "are consistent with the division's obligation to ensure that all liquor licensees comply with the law." "New Jersey statutes state that profiting from a liquor license is a privilege, not a right granted by law," the spokesperson said in a statement. It was soon after Trump's May 30, 2024, conviction that New Jersey officials first said that the two golf club licenses were under review. In June of 2024, they announced that they did not intend to renew the licenses due to Trump's new status as a felon. Both the Bedminster and Colts Neck licenses are in the name of Donald Trump, Jr., the president's son, but the state AG's office ruled at the time that Trump himself is the primary beneficiary of the clubs' liquor sales. A license-revocation hearing — at which Trump would bear the burden of proving he was qualified to be a license beneficiary — was initially set for July 2024, only to be repeatedly canceled. A new hearing date has yet to be announced. New Jersey law requires liquor licenses be revoked if their owner or primary beneficiary is sentenced for a crime of moral turpitude, a category which includes felony falsifying business records. That's the state charge Trump was sentenced to in Manhattan in January, nine days before his inauguration. This week's license extension further requires that by September 30, the Trump Organization provide the alcoholic beverage control officials with details of "the corporate structure, ownership, and beneficiary interests" behind the licenses. Trump's third New Jersey golf club is the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia, which is 45 minutes from that city in Pine Hill. The town, not the state, regulates that license, which was also due to expire June 30. Officials in Pine Hill and a food and beverage manager at the golf club there did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The chief legal officer of the Trump Organization also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the license renewals and the required special conditions. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
01-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Trump's NJ golf courses can sell liquor for 6 more months, but he can't pocket the cash just yet
The Champagne will keep flowing for another six months at two of President Donald Trump's New Jersey golf courses, despite his felony conviction. For now, though, the Trump Organization is barred from touching the proceeds. Officials with the New Jersey Attorney General's Office said Tuesday that they have issued temporary, half-year extensions for the liquor licenses at the Trump National Golf Club in Colts Neck and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. The last-minute extensions were necessary to keep the drinks flowing while state officials continue to review Trump's application to renew the licenses for the coming year. Without the extension, the licenses at the Colts Neck and Bedminster clubs would have expired outright on Monday, June 30. But the extensions come with heavy strings attached — including that Trump, as a convicted felon, and any other corporate members of the clubs' LLCs must keep their hands out of the bar tills at the two clubs indefinitely. The attorney general's Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control is requiring that proceeds from the two clubs' liquor licenses be held in untouched accounts kept separate from those for the clubs' other income. It's a constraint that Peter Rhodes — a lawyer who's specialized for 30 years in New Jersey liquor licensing — says he's never seen imposed. Usually, when a license owner or beneficiary becomes a felon, they are simply given time to walk away from the license, Rhodes said, usually by selling or transferring their interest to a non-felon. "One might infer that the ABC is struggling with how to handle this issue — with how to deprive a felon of the proceeds of their license," he told BI. "In short, I find it peculiar," said Rhodes, whose Haddonfield-based firm, Cahill, Wilinski, Rhodes & Joyce, has served for 50 years as counsel to the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association. "What they don't say is what happens to that money if, in fact, they find that he is disqualified," Rhodes added. "They can't just confiscate it." A spokesperson for New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin told Business Insider that the special conditions "are consistent with the division's obligation to ensure that all liquor licensees comply with the law." "New Jersey statutes state that profiting from a liquor license is a privilege, not a right granted by law," the spokesperson said in a statement. It was soon after Trump's May 30, 2024, conviction that New Jersey officials first said that the two golf club licenses were under review. In June of 2024, they announced that they did not intend to renew the licenses due to Trump's new status as a felon. Both the Bedminster and Colts Neck licenses are in the name of Donald Trump, Jr., the president's son, but the state AG's office ruled at the time that Trump himself is the primary beneficiary of the clubs' liquor sales. A license-revocation hearing — at which Trump would bear the burden of proving he was qualified to be a license beneficiary — was initially set for July 2024, only to be repeatedly canceled. A new hearing date has yet to be announced. New Jersey law requires liquor licenses be revoked if their owner or primary beneficiary is sentenced for a crime of moral turpitude, a category which includes felony falsifying business records. That's the state charge Trump was sentenced to in Manhattan in January, nine days before his inauguration. This week's license extension further requires that by September 30, the Trump Organization provide the alcoholic beverage control officials with details of "the corporate structure, ownership, and beneficiary interests" behind the licenses. Trump's third New Jersey golf club is the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia, which is 45 minutes from that city in Pine Hill. The town, not the state, regulates that license, which was also due to expire June 30. Officials in Pine Hill and a food and beverage manager at the golf club there did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The chief legal officer of the Trump Organization also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the license renewals and the required special conditions.
Technical.ly
19-02-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Philly trading card startup CollX raises $10M Series A, will focus on growing community
Philly-based trading card platform CollX raked in millions more dollars last month, once again receiving support from local investors. CollX raised a $10 million Series A, with plans to use the funding for marketing and platform development efforts, cofounder and CEO Ted Mann told this week. Lead investors Brand Foundry Venture and 114 Ventures returned after contributing to the company's $5.5 million seed round in 2023. Local investor Ben Franklin Technology Partners, along with Next Coast Ventures and FJ labs also contributed to both rounds. The startup touts its local investor support, despite a lack of specialized, consumer VCs in the region. 'It's largely pouring fuel on the fire,' he said. 'It gives us more ability to accelerate user growth with paid marketing, to accelerate our engineering work and ongoing development.' CollX did not disclose its valuation. It's been difficult as an early-stage consumer app to raise money from Philly-area investors because there aren't a lot of institutional investors in the region focused on consumer companies, Mann said. Fortunately, Haddonfield-based CollX, a former RealLIST startup, built a relationship with Philadelphia-based 114 Ventures which specializes in early-stage companies. The company clicked with the follow-turned-lead investor because one of the firm's founders, Mike Petrakis, has experience building a marketplace platform, he said. It helps that the consumer focus also gained interest from stakeholders in the sports world, like Howie Roseman, general manager of the Eagles and David Adelman, owner of the 76ers. Most recently, MLB player Bobby Witt Jr. contributed to the funding round. 'We're very fortunate that Witt happens to be already very well known and synonymous with collecting,' Mann said. Tapping into the niche card-selling market CollX's app uses AI to scan, identify and price trading cards. The platform also has a marketplace, where users can buy and sell cards. The company is working on new features for its marketplace, Mann said, including plans to expand the marketplace to include other product types like boxes of cards and complete card sets. CollX launched in 2021 as a tool to help trading card collectors understand the value of their cards. The platform has a visual search function that scrapes pricing data from other websites to estimate how much cards are worth. It is also starting to see more high-value cards being sold on the marketplace, signaling that users trust the marketplace to complete those transactions, Mann said. With the most recent raise, CollX plans to integrate its Card Dealer Pro software more into the app's marketplace, Mann said. CollX acquired Denver-based competitor Card Dealer Pro in 2022, which allows users to scan, inventory and sell cards in bulk on the platform. 'When they list on eBay or other sites, they can now control the listings from Card Dealer Pro. They can cross-list to their own website, on Shopify, or to the collective marketplace,' Mann said. 'We're gonna beef up what we're doing there.' A community of traders, on app and IRL Since launching the marketplace in 2023, the process of moving users over there has been slow, Mann said. But now, the momentum is picking up and they have 30,000 active buyers and 20,000 active sellers. Mann is especially excited to see the platform's community continue to grow. They currently have about 3 million users total, he said. Those users are taking the community they build into other aspects of card collecting, too. Over the last year, the platform has been used more and more as a tool to expose people to the different aspects of card collecting, like card shows or card opening livestreams, he said. 'We just want to embrace this role as the on-ramp, as the guys that help onboard collectors and show them the ropes,' Mann said. 'Teach them how to buy a … card, how to get it graded, how to build a community, how to meet other collectors and start to forge some relationships.' Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
