The scramble has begun among Tisbury restaurant owners seeking to sell beer and wine, to get their license applications completed if they hope to cash in on this summer’s tourist season.

After the years of debate about whether or not to allow alcohol sales in town, and more debate about local regulations, town hall finally made application packages available late yesterday, two days after the selectmen finalized the regulations.

But it is likely to be months before the successful owners get their licenses. Summer could be over before they come through. Best estimates suggest it will be well into August before they can expect to begin trading.

There are 17 different requirements they must fulfil, said Tisbury town administrator John Bugbee.

He itemized some of them: applicants must notify all abutters within 300 feet of their establishment (this was reduced at the last minute from 500); fill in three or four state forms, including one of six pages; provide a criminal background check; provide a floor plan, a plan of operations, an employee training plan, proof of their tax status. The list goes on.

“It is quite the process,” Mr. Bugbee said. “But we’re trying to expedite things as much as we can within the licensing guidelines set by the state.”

Delay is built in, however.

The way the process will work, Mr. Bugbee said, is that after a restaurant owner submits a completed application package, there will be a 10-day period in which it must be advertised. Then within another 10 days, there will be a hearing. Then the selectmen have 30 days to assess the application.

Assuming they approve, they then have three days in which to submit it to the state’s Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission (ABCC).

“I’m told the ABCC is currently taking six to eight weeks to process licenses,” he said.

And then, assuming the ABCC approves, the town has another seven days in which to issue the license.

Altogether, that makes for well over 100 days of process. Someone applying today would not be able to sell their first alcoholic beverage until late August at the earliest. Or September. By then customers might prefer a warming glass of red wine to a cold beer.

And the process will not be cheap. Application to the ABCC costs $200. Application to the town costs $300. And the annual licence fee for a year-round license — the selectmen are empowered by the state to issue up to 17 of those — will be $2,500. The fee will be the same for seasonal licenses, of which the selectmen may issue an unspecified number.

The complexity of the application packages caused delays yesterday. They were not available until mid-afternoon. In the end, only three Tisbury restaurants — Le Grenier, Waterside Market and the Blue Canoe — made it to town hall before 5 p.m. to pick up application packages.

More owners were expected to get their packages today.

But while the process of licensing has begun, the process of the process is still not quite complete.

At their meeting on Tuesday, the selectmen did not finalize penalties for breaches by restaurants. Their major concern is over how they enforce the so-called 65-35 rule, intended to ensure establishments do most of their trade in food, not alcohol.

They face a dilemma. They could stipulate penalties now, which would convey to the townspeople who don’t want alcohol sales that they mean to tightly control it.

The new chairman of selectmen, Jeff Kristal, was an early advocate of this course.

Or they could eschew closely-defined penalties at the outset, and let them evolve according to the merits of particular cases as they come up. Selectman Geoghan Coogan prefers that course. The third board member, Tristan Israel, wants to think more about it.

At their previous meeting on Tuesday last week they deferred the matter to this week’s meeting. This past Tuesday they deferred it again for more consideration.

The signs point to the issue of penalties remaining fluid for some time.

But there is no real urgency yet.

Selectmen will have at least three months to consider the matter before any restaurant sells a single glass of beer or wine in Tisbury, let alone breaches the 65-35 rule.

Also this week the selectmen confirmed a special town meeting would be held on June 29.

The need for the meeting arises because Tisburyresidents voted down a ballot question at the April 27 election, which proposed raising property taxes to fund the $225,000 cost of increases to police pay, due under an arbitrated agreement with the police union. Despite the fact that the proposal was supported by the selectmen, finance committee and a large majority at annual town meeting, itwas defeated 934 to 606.

Rather than seek to restart negotiations with the police, selectmen have opted to try again to convince townspeople to approve the money.