HADLEY - The planned opening of Zoe's restaurant at 195 Russell St. on Jan. 1 could be affected by a mystery regarding a liquor license for the site.

The owners of Butternuts, the restaurant at the site that closed earlier this year, owed $54,000 to the state in unpaid meals taxes and withholdings, said Robert Bliss, a spokesman for the Department of Revenue. So the department seized the restaurant's liquor license, its only remaining asset, he said.

Meanwhile, Jim Sands, owner of Yourway Gourmet in Easthampton, negotiated a lease for the vacant restaurant space with property owner John Regish. He plans to open a fish restaurant there called Zoe's, going by the same name of a popular restaurant that he owned on Route 10 in Easthampton, which closed in February 2008.

But when the Department of Revenue auctioned off the liquor license on Nov. 5, Sands was not the only bidder, even though he had signed a lease for the property. Sands planned to spend no more than $2,000 for the license but was outbid, he said.

The winning bid was $3,000, plus a 10 percent auctioneer's fee. The buyer of the license was Jeffrey Aldrich, a resident of Hadley who owns a restaurant in Holyoke called Eighty Jarvis.

On Wednesday, the Board of Selectmen's scheduled hearing on the application for a liquor license for Zoe's was postponed. Members of the board wondered why Aldrich would buy a liquor license that was specific to a certain property when someone else already had a lease to use that site.

"The license is literally attached to that address, and the only way to de-attach it is a lengthy process with the town and the state," Bliss said.

Reached at his Holyoke restaurant Thursday, Aldrich said his reason for buying the license is confidential. But he said he's negotiating with Sands to resolve the situation and assign the license to him.

Aldrich is not thinking about opening a restaurant in Hadley, he said. His two sons work with him at the Holyoke restaurant, one as general manager and the other as executive chef, he said.

"I thought it would be a nice thing to hold onto (the license) in case I wanted it," he said. He said he didn't know that Sands had a lease on the property.

Sands' liquor license hearing has been rescheduled for the selectmen's meeting of Dec. 2. If he has to open Jan. 1 without a liquor license, he will, he said.

"If Aldrich doesn't have a place to apply the license to, he would have to turn it over to Hadley, then once it's clear I could get it," Sands said. He said he's been advised by state officials that Hadley can rescind the license and issue a new one.

"I don't know why someone would make it difficult for me to open," he said.