Fred Meyer owes Anchorage back taxes — so the city grabbed its liquor licenses

Fred Meyer — the grocery giant, not some cash-strapped corner store — owes Anchorage back taxes, and the city just used the one piece of leverage it has to make the company pay: its liquor licenses.

The Anchorage Assembly voted July 7 to conditionally block the renewal of four Fred Meyer package-store licenses until the chain settles its debt to the municipality. The stores at Muldoon, Dimond, Abbott Road, and Eagle River had cleared every other check — police, fire, health, land use. The only thing standing between them and a renewed license to sell alcohol is the unpaid tax bill. "Taxes are owed to the Municipality of Anchorage," Assembly Chair Anna Brawley said flatly.

The mechanism is simple leverage. When a business seeks to renew a liquor license, the Assembly can protest it — and a protest freezes the state's approval. So rather than chase Fred Meyer through some slower collection process, the city is holding the licenses until the money arrives. The moment the chain pays in full, the clerk can lift the protest automatically, no second vote required.

Fred Meyer wasn't alone. The Assembly filed the same kind of tax-based protest against Stalk Steakhouse in Eagle River the same night. And the contrast tells the story: the Assembly waved through every other alcohol-license renewal on the agenda with no objection — because those businesses didn't owe the city money. Only the ones behind on their taxes got flagged.