The city of Kent has moved to get a handle on new liquor licenses moving into that city.

Kent has long been at its state quota for liquor licenses, but a new process called "TREX" allows the transfers for economic development reasons.

That prompted the city to move to better control transfers of licenses from elsewhere.

Kent economic development director Dan Smith says that Kent city council wanted more control of that process...with a half dozen requests since the state "TREX" law was approved in March.

"We had quite a few people requesting additional liquor licenses," Smith tells AkronNewsNow.com, "so they wanted to set some standards about what would or would not constitute a major economic development project."

Smith says they're aiming for bringing significant projects to town, not small storefront bars.

"I think what we weren't looking for is a two or three employee storefront location, where they're just taking an empty storefront and putting a small, local bar in," Smith says.

Smith says the standards for a D5I permit are good guidelines...an investment of at least $750,000, 140 seats, 4000 square feet, and alcohol sales comprising less than 25 percent of income.

But he says the Kent law passed this week gives the city more flexibility if it finds a project not meeting those guidelines could still spur economic development.