The hit back at the liquor license (which apparently requires admitting the general public, with only very specific exceptions) sounded pretty clever to me.
That someone needs to resort to clever liquor license dispute adds to the dystopian feel of this story.
It's unfortunate that certain professions have extremely high walls around them: police, doctors, lawyers, even certain elected officials and select other professions are very hard to displace, while their position grants them very easy tools to displace, manipulate, or harm others.