Decision ‘08

Dallas Night Club Wins Round One

Though the TABC could still rule to revoke the Dallas Night Club’s liquor license, an administrative judge on Friday ruled against the TABC and for Dallas:

An administrative law judge recommended Friday that Dallas Night Club keep its liquor license, saying that the evidence presented in a January hearing did not support the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s bid to stop the club from serving alcohol.

Judge Sharon Cloninger ruled that the commission failed to prove that Dallas bartenders knowingly served alcohol to intoxicated persons or that its weekly 69-cent drink special induced customers to drink excessively or prevented employees from adequately monitoring customers’ drinking.

The commission declined to comment on Cloninger’s 43-page decision. The three-member commission will make the final decision on whether to cancel Dallas’ license.

“I regret that we had to go this far, but we’re comfortable that we’ve been vindicated and we’re going to rebuild our clientele and our business,” said Betty Jensen, president of Cowpoke Inc., which runs the club on Burnet Road.

It’s the latest setback for an agency whose recent undercover operations in bars across Texas have brought loud complaints from bar owners, patrons and local tourism officials — and prompted state lawmakers to hold a hearing earlier this week on the tactics.

The commission recently suspended the program that sent commission agents and local police into bars to arrest what they said were intoxicated patrons. Commission officials are reviewing the program, which was announced Aug. 26.

Regular readers may recall that I’ve written on this subject before, and I’ll repeat that my interest is in combating what I see as an unfair targeting of a small business by state officials. I have no financial interest in this, nor do I know the owners, managers, or any of the bartenders, but I do have friends who have told me how the TABC has basically run one of Austin’s most thriving bar scenes right into the ground.

Still pending is the lawsuit brought by the club’s owners against the TABC for essentially destroying their very profitable business. It’s funny how many of the same people who decry the ‘theocracy’ of America on the national level are perfectly content with puritanical smoking bans and harassment of bar owners. I drink, but very infrequently, and I quit smoking almost two years ago, but I’ll never support the type of laws that prevent bar owners from, in essence, running their businesses. Go get ‘em, Dallas…