What Entity Structures Work Best for Holding a TABC Permit, and Why?
The reflex answer to "what entity should hold my alcohol permit" is usually "an LLC," delivered as if the question were settled. It is not. The…
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100 articlesWhat Conduct Surety Bonds and Performance Bonds Does TABC Require, and Who Is Exempt?
"Do I need a bond?" is a question with no single answer in Texas. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) may require different bonds depending on…
What Should a Written Alcohol Policy Contain to Protect a Permit Holder?
"Have a written policy" is advice a permit holder hears often, and it is incomplete. A policy that exists only as a line item, a file…
What Is the Mixed Beverage Gross Receipts Tax, and How Does It Differ from the Mixed Beverage Sales Tax?
Many people picture alcohol as carrying a single sales tax, the way most retail purchases do. In Texas, a mixed beverage business is subject to two…
How Is a Mixed Beverage Audit Assessment Formally Challenged or Appealed?
After a mixed beverage audit produces a determination, a business that disagrees has formal routes to dispute it, and those routes run on strict deadlines. Missing…
What Is a TABC Emergency Suspension Order, and When Can the Agency Issue One?
Most enforcement against a Texas alcohol permit moves through an ordinary path: an alleged violation, notice, a chance to settle or contest, and a hearing before…
What Is the Safe Harbor Defense, and What Documentation Does a Business Need to Invoke It?
When an employee makes an unlawful sale, such as serving a minor or an intoxicated person, the instinct is to ask whether the business itself is…
What Records Must a Bar or Restaurant Keep to Survive a Mixed Beverage Audit?
"Keep good records" is true but useless on its own. A mixed beverage audit reconstructs sales from purchases, so the records that matter are the specific…
What Is Seller-Server (TABC) Certification, and Which Staff Are Required to Hold It?
Seller-server certification is one of the most familiar pieces of running an alcohol business in Texas, and one of the most commonly misunderstood. It is training…
How Is an Emergency Suspension Order Challenged at a Hearing?
An emergency suspension lands differently from an ordinary enforcement notice. The permit is already suspended, the business is already closed for the duration stated in the…
What Owner and Officer Disclosures Does TABC Require on an Application?
"Just list the owner" is how many applicants imagine the disclosure part of a TABC application. The actual reach is wider. TABC requires disclosure of owners,…
How Does a Comptroller Mixed Beverage Tax Audit Actually Work, Step by Step?
A mixed beverage tax audit is not a quick glance at the returns a business filed. The Texas Comptroller audits both mixed beverage taxes together and…
How Are Six-Figure Mixed Beverage Audit Assessments Negotiated Down?
A mixed beverage audit assessment can land at a number that bears little resemblance to what a business believes it owes, especially when the audit relied…
How Does the Comptroller Use Pour-Cost and Depletion Analysis to Estimate Unreported Sales?
When a mixed beverage audit cannot rely on a business's records, the Texas Comptroller does not simply give up and accept the reported numbers. It estimates…
How After-Hours and Breach-of-Peace Violations Threaten a TABC Permit
It is easy to read a late pour or a Saturday-night scuffle as a small operational hiccup, the kind of thing that gets cleaned up by…
How the TABC Administrative Violation Process Works, and What SOAH’s Role Is
When a license holder contests an alleged violation, the agency that brought the charge does not get to decide it. The case moves to an independent…
Publication and Newspaper Notice Requirements for a TABC Application
Public notice is one of the steps that catches applicants off guard, because it is not optional for the permits it applies to, and getting it…
What a “Death Penalty” Sanction Is, and How a Single Sale Can Cost a Business Its Permit
Cancellation is the most severe sanction TABC has, the end of the permit, and it is what operators mean by the "death penalty." The dangerous part…
When a Texas City or County Can Regulate Alcohol, and Where State Preemption Ends Their Authority
A useful starting point for any question about a local alcohol rule is to ask a single question: does the Alcoholic Beverage Code actually authorize this?…
How Sales-to-Intoxicated-Person Violations Arise, and How They Are Contested
Serving someone who is intoxicated sounds like an easy thing to avoid, until you are behind a busy bar and have to decide, in real time,…
From a Wrongful Local Refusal to a Lawsuit That Seeks to Compel Certification
When a city or county refuses a certification on a ground the Code does not support, the applicant is not without options, but the path to…
What Documents and Disclosures a TABC Application Requires
A TABC application is not a single form you fill out and send. It is a package, and the slowest applications are usually the ones where…
What a Distance Variance Is, and When a Business Can Request One
A distance variance is the exception valve on a local distance rule. When a city or county has adopted an ordinance keeping alcohol businesses a set…
The Most Frequent TABC Filing Mistakes That Delay or Block Approval
The AIMS portal will let an applicant submit a file that is going to stall. It does not pre-screen for the errors that actually cause delay,…
How a Distance Variance Application Proceeds Before a City Council
When a proposed alcohol location inside an incorporated city falls within the distance prohibited by a local ordinance, the route to relief usually runs through the…