LUBBOCK, Texas — According to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC), two Lubbock business had their alcohol licenses suspended this month.

Governor Greg Abbott ordered bars to close three weeks ago when COVID-19 hospitalization rates at area hospitals went over 15 percent for seven consecutive days. Businesses classified as restaurants were ordered to decrease their capacity to 50 percent.

Chris Porter with TABC said since the governor’s order was issued, his agency has been checking on businesses. Charley B’s and The Library Bar in Lubbock had violations in the second week of November, resulting in a suspension of their alcohol licenses.

“A suspension means that their license to sell alcohol will be temporarily suspended,” Porter said.
“Generally what we are doing is according to the governor’s orders, issuing suspensions for 30 days and in some cases we are able to resend some of those once we reach a settlement.”

Porter said repeat violators can get 60-day suspensions and that each case must have a hearing within ten days after the suspension is issued.

“Our shutdown is due to us not obtaining the new temporary food and beverage permit. We have already applied for a new one and hope to be open by this weekend,” said Justin Sherman, General Manager of The Library Bar Lubbock.

Charley B’s said everything was fine and that it were operating as a restaurant. The establishment gave no further comment.

Porter said that of the 23,000 inspections that have been done across Texas, TABC has found a total of 650 violations and they’ve issued 200 suspensions thus far.

“By and large, the vast majority of businesses understand what needs to happen,” Porter said. “They are taking the necessary steps to keep customers and their employees safe, and the number of real bad actors that we’ve seen out there and has been very very small, so we know people are struggling and we do want to make every effort we can to help them operate and help them operate safely.”