Greve

-The present case involves the attempt by a corporate purchaser of premises licensed for the sale of alcoholic beverages to avoid the obligation it assumed in giving the seller an option to repurchase the licenses in the event of the purchaser’s default on its undertaking to buy the premises. The purchaser urges the sole defense that Business and Professions Code section 24076 forbade its agreement to such an option and hence nullified the obligation it assumed. For the reasons set forth below, we have concluded that the statute affords the purchaser no such defense.

Plaintiffs seek relief from a judgment of dismissal following the sustaining of a general demurrer to their complaint without leave to amend. In that complaint plaintiffs alleged that the parties had concluded an agreement for the sale to Leger, Limited (hereafter defendant) of a hotel owned by the plaintiffs together with its liquor licenses. Plaintiffs further alleged that the parties subsequently entered into another written agreement by which defendant bound itself to keep the licenses on the premises and to refrain from selling them to third parties until it had performed its obligations to plaintiffs under the…