A competitor has filed a protest against Parkside Cafe owner John Gilbert’s application for a liquor license. August Temer, the co-owner and executive chef at two other Stinson Beach restaurants, submitted the protest to the state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control last month. He argued that allowing the Parkside to serve hard liquor would cause problems for the community, and that the town already has enough bars. “Why is it needed?,” Mr. Temer asked in an interview. “If anything is needed in Stinson, it’s a gas station.” Mr. Gilbert previously told the Light the new license wouldn’t make a noticeable difference at the restaurant, and it would likely boost sales. The general license would cost the Parkside about $800 annually, on top of a $6,000 application fee, according to the A.B.C. website. All the town’s restaurants struggled when they lost business during the pandemic. The two establishments owned by the Temer family, the Sand Dollar and the Breakers Cafe, have both had full bars since the family purchased them. An explosion damaged the Sand Dollar last year, and the restaurant remains closed through the winter. The Parkside already serves beer and wine, but Mr. Temer said spirits would pose more acute problems and argued that the state should deny the license because California’s newly relaxed to-go cocktail laws heighten the nuisances and dangers posed by public drinking. Mr. Temer said the café is patronized by young people and is near the beach and a public park with a playground; liquor on the menu would encourage underage drinking and public intoxication, he wrote. He also argued that Stinson Beach doesn’t have enough of a sheriff presence to enforce laws. With a population of just 600 people, he said the town doesn’t need another place to buy a drink. Mr. Temer said his own restaurants are further from the downtown park and the beach, and he doesn’t sell any hard alcohol to take away. “When people come to the beach, they come to hang loose,” he said. “You sure as hell can’t control it once it leaves [the restaurant].” Proximity to a playground or park or an “undue concentration of licenses” are grounds for a protest, according to the A.B.C. website. If the agency recommends the license for approval, Mr. Temer would have to request a protest hearing. The Temer family isn’t entirely in agreement on the issue: Co-owner and general manager Sam Temer, August’s brother, said he would not have filed a protest over the issue. Though he wishes Mr. Gilbert hadn’t applied for the general license, which could cut into the family’s business, he understands it as part of the difficult task of keeping a restaurant open in Stinson Beach. “There’s a fraternal order doing something like that,” Sam said. “It’s not easy work.” He added: “At the end of the day, if John needed my bone marrow, I’d be the first one in line to give it to him.”