Highland Park has made another update to its liquor license ordinances, this time to remove an out-of-date citizenship requirement that city staff said could impact businesses currently operating or interested in opening in the city’s business districts.

Councilwoman Annette Lidawer requested that the item be taken off the consent agenda during Monday’s meeting to discuss the update. While she supported the change, calling the oversight “egregious,” she described the situation as an example of a broader concern regarding the city’s ordinances.

“This is a larger question … we talked about going through our entire code to make sure that old laws that are either out of date or no longer appropriate — snowball fights, the speed limit for horseback horses — there are certain laws that we just need to get off our books,” Lidawer said.

According to meeting documents, the citizenship requirement for liquor licenses initially came from the state. That changed in 2019, when Illinois removed a portion of the Local Liquor Act of 1934 requiring citizenship for a state liquor license.

However, while the state-level requirement was struck down, local municipalities could continue to maintain their ordinances with existing citizenship restrictions.

According to city staff, many area municipalities have since amended their local codes to expressly allow licenses to be issued to citizens and permanent residents, or to remove the issue from the licensing process.

No local businesses have been denied a liquor license due to the previous code, staff said, although they noted that a recent case involving a local business brought the issue to the forefront.

City Manager Ghida Neukirch said Highland Park updates its ordinances as it goes, but city officials will be starting an effort to review the totality of the city’s code, identifying every section and when it was last examined, then prioritizing sections and putting together a plan for a full review.

Monday’s fix had echoes of a now two-year-old controversy around the city’s liquor licenses, when a rediscovered Prohibition-era portion of the ordinance that prohibited public officials from holding liquor licenses — and the City Council’s delay in modifying the ordinance — forced a newly elected city councilman to resign.

Neukirch said they had caught the citizenship issue during that last update to the liquor code, but it “wasn’t a priority” at the time and was put on hold until recently, when an applicant for a liquor license came forward who was not a citizen.

“They worked it out from their end in terms of who the contact is for the restaurant, but that’s why we decided to just bring it forward,” Neukirch said.

The change makes Highland Park consistent with state law, she said.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/16/highland-park-liquor-licenses/