Senate moves to let breweries sell beer to go, make it easier to own several liquor stores

The Texas Senate restored a measure Wednesday allowing breweries to sell beer to go from their taprooms to a bill allowing the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission to continue operating. It also approved a measure that would loosen restrictions on the number of liquor store permits individuals can hold.

State Sen. Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway, said her amendment allowing breweries to sell beer to go — something allowed in every state except Texas — would foster job creation, economic development, entrepreneurship and tourism.

“We stand our best when we stand together, and we come together on issues that have been divisive in the past,” Buckingham said during the floor debate. “Our constituents elected us to be bold — and with that, I give you beer to go, baby.”

The TABC bill's sponsor in the Senate, Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, also added an amendment that would allow individuals to hold up to 250 liquor store permits. Under current law, individuals are prohibited from owning more than five liquor stores, with two exceptions. One exception applies to anyone who owned a liquor store before May 1, 1949. The other allows anyone with a parent, child or sibling who is also in the liquor store business to join forces and obtain an unlimited amount of permits. Together, those two exceptions only apply to 11 of more than 2,600 liquor stores in Texas.

The amendment “brings a level playing field and free market approach to the issuance of package store permits while also ensuring the TABC is able to do so in a responsible manner,” Birdwell said during the floor debate.

Both provisions are now part of a House Bill 1545, a larger bill that the legislature must pass in order for the TABC to keep functioning. Known as the sunset review process, it’s a once-in-a-dozen-years opportunity for lawmakers to overhaul the state’s arcane alcohol laws.

The addition of the beer-to-go provision restores a measure that the House added to the bill last month. The Senate, though, did not restore another House provision that would have allowed retailers like grocery stores and restaurants to begin selling beer and wine at 10 a.m. instead of noon on Sundays.

The Senate's beer-to-go amendment was made possible largely by an agreement between the Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas, a large lobby group representing the interests of beer distributor; the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, which represents the interests of local breweries; and the Beer Alliance of Texas, another group representing distributors.

The Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas didn’t sign on when the truce was originally made in February but agreed to the sign on with the other two groups earlier this month.

Birdwell has tried for four sessions to abolish the law regulating package store limits. This session, he authored Senate Bill 645, which passed the Senate but died in a House committee. And Buckingham filed SB 312, which would have allowed beer to go. But her bill never got a committee hearing.

Throughout the sunset review process, the bill's author, state Rep. Chris Paddie, R-Marshall, and other lawmakers and stakeholders have emphasized that they would work to focus the bill on effectiveness and efficiency — not policy.

But Birdwell said he crafted his amendment because the TABC sunset bill has become "one of the only opportunities to update the state's archaic alcoholic beverage code."

The House still has to approve the Senate's amendments before the changes go into effect.

Disclosure: Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.