A debate is brewing.

As New Jersey officials consider revoking liquor licenses at Trump-owned golf courses in the Garden State, gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli has asked state leaders to stand down.

Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman seeking the GOP nomination for governor in 2025, wrote a letter to Attorney General Matt Platkin and Alcohol Beverage Control Director Kirstin Krueger in which he characterized the move to pull the licenses as political retribution. The letter, co-written with Monmouth County Commissioner Thomas Arnone (R-Neptune City), says a move to revoke liquor licenses would endanger the jobs of hundreds of employees who work at former President Donald Trump’s New Jersey golf courses.

“As residents and taxpayers – as well as former and current elected officials representing Monmouth and Somerset Counties, respectively – we urge you to not allow partisan politics to impact the livelihoods of the several hundred working class New Jersey residents employed at both golf clubs,” Ciattarelli and Arnone wrote. “These men and women depend on each club’s continued operations to keep a roof over their heads, put food on their tables, care for aging relatives, and send their children to college or trade school.”

Ciattarelli once served as a county freeholder in Somerset County, where Trump’s Bedminster golf club is located; Arnone, as the director of the Monmouth County commissioner board, represents Trump’s Colts Neck course.

The Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control began to consider the revocation of the liquor licenses after Trump’s felony conviction in May. Hearings over the matter have been delayed and spirits are still flowing at the courses, for now.

“No one following this truly believes that these businesses are being so aggressively targeted and publicly dragged through the mud for any other reason than the name of the family associated with these golf clubs,” Ciattarelli and Arnone wrote to Platkin.

New Jersey law forbids people convicted of a crime involving “moral turpitude” from holding a liquor license. The Trump Organization said that because the former president does not himself hold the liquor licenses, the “moral turpitude” law need not apply. But the Attorney General’s Office argued the law applies because Trump holds a direct financial interest in the golf courses.

Until a hearing on the matter, the case is up in the air. But Ciattarelli and Arnone hope the inquiry can end sooner rather than later.

“Given the long history of animus towards former President Trump by Governor Murphy and this Administration, as well as the excessive media coverage driven by the Attorney General’s Office, the only possible conclusion is that the thrust of your effort is political in nature,” they wrote.