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HADDON HEIGHTS, NJ – Soon, Haddon Heights diners may be allowed to enjoy a cocktail with a nice restaurant meal. The city is one of New Jersey’s few remaining “dry towns,” but as Steve Keeley reports, that could end next year.

At Kunkel’s Seafood and Steakhouse on Kings Highway in Haddon Heights, the election was won. Unfortunately, it arrived 20 years too late for the establishment, which was busy with catering customers but had an empty bar, lacking people, drinks and a bartender – as has been the case since their beginnings ago 20 years because Haddon Heights, for the last 120 years, it was a dry town where it was illegal to sell alcohol.

“Twenty years ago the city council at the time said come to town, open here instead of going somewhere else, build a bar, we’re going to get a liquor license and that’s never came,” recalls owner John Kunkel. by Kunkel.

By a margin of three to two, Haddon Heights voters said “yes” to allowing restaurants to serve alcoholic beverages with dinner Tuesday.

It’s now up to the mayor and council to craft the ordinance.

“I was thrilled. We were thrilled last night to see that the bill passed,” said Haddon Heights Mayor Zachary Houck.

“We both voted ‘yes,’ which is good, because I think it’s not a bad thing. But I don’t know if we’re going to want to do it now at this point. We’ve waited so long “I don’t know if it’s something we want to do long term,” shared Carol Kunkel, co-owner of Kunkel’s Seafood & Steakhouse.

At their age, they may not stay in business long enough to earn enough to recoup the high cost of obtaining a liquor license. They can only imagine how much business they’ve lost over the past 20 years from customers choosing to dine where they can also have drinks.

“We lose a lot of business as a city with people leaving and going elsewhere for drinks. When it comes to vacations, people usually congregate in your city. We don’t have anywhere to congregate .They are gathering outside the city,” lamented John Kunkel.

Still working hard after many of her seniors have already retired, owner and hostess Carol Kunkel is in no mood to change careers.

When asked if she wanted to become a bartender, she replied with a laugh: “No, absolutely not.”