Cordova's visitor numbers support 0.03 of a tourism liquor license. Rounded up, that is one.

Copper River Brewing has asked the state for permission to admit families with children for dining and to host live music through September, under a license type no business in Cordova has ever held.

No Road Brewing LLC, doing business as Copper River Brewing at 516 1st St., filed for a seasonal restaurant or eating place tourism license on Aug. 19. Christiana Fincher and Curtis Fincher each hold a half interest in the company. The Alcoholic Beverage Control Board is scheduled to consider the application Sept. 1 in Anchorage, and the season runs April 1 through Sept. 30.

Whether the license exists at all rests on a visitor count the brewery assembled itself. Regulation allows one license per 1,500 visitors per visitor day, and a visitor day is the annual count divided by 182. Licensing Examiner Anna White ran the applicant's estimate of 9,112 visitors in 2025 through that formula in an Aug. 25 memo: 9,112, divided by 182, divided by 1,500, is 0.03. It rounds up, and one license becomes available. A separate entry test, more than 4,000 visitors a year, Cordova clears at more than double. Regulation then fixes the count for every application of this type in Cordova for the rest of the calendar year.

The estimate combines 7,010 guests in paid lodging, worked back from about $277,000 in city accommodations surtax, plus cannery workers, non-resident fishermen and crew, and cruise day passengers. The brewery calls its own figure conservative and likely low. Cordova has about 2,416 residents and two restaurant licenses capped by that population.

The license would let 16- to 20-year-olds dine on the premises, while children under 16 could dine only if accompanied by someone at least 21 and with a parent or guardian's consent. "Minors will be allowed in the dining area and minors may be employed and present in the kitchen," Christiana Fincher wrote in the application. Minors would be barred from the bar area, with a manager or assistant manager stationed behind it. State law requires annual food-sale receipts at least equal to alcohol-sale receipts.

White's memo records no objection to the application.