The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board voted on Tuesday afternoon to allow bars and other locations with a liquor license to resume selling alcohol after 11:00 p.m., effective immediately.
During the last week of July, the ABC Board banned sales after 11:00 in an effort to help bring down the state’s COVID-19 numbers, which were spiking at the time. The seven-day average of new cases has come down from 1,631 on July 27, to 651 on Tuesday.
Still in place for bars and restaurants are rules restricting establishments to 50% of their capacity, requiring masks for those not currently imbibing, and other measures meant to prevent virus transmission.
Though the ability for municipalities to impose local 11:00 p.m. restrictions remains in place, the City of Tuscaloosa followed the ABC Board’s example and removed its 11:00 p.m. sales restriction.
“Our goal all along has been to relieve these restricted hours as soon as we could do so safely,” ABC Board chairman Alan Spencer told the Montgomery Advertiser.
The motion to resume late-night sales of alcohol passed unanimously at the special meeting called Tuesday.
Multiple bar owners have spoken to media outlets in recent weeks, saying the rule was hurting their business by cutting off hours of service that were profitable for them.
Dean Argo, spokesman for the ABC Board, told CBS42 about the rule change, “We feel like this is the best route to go because it gives the authority back to licensees to handle those medical directives on their terms but it also lets their patrons know, hey, we’ve got to take this very seriously. We can’t just ignore these medical directives.”
Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: henry@new-yhn.local or on Twitter @HenryThornton95
