If you've ever been refused a drink in a bar because you've, uh, overindulged, you may be in fairly distinguished company: A former bartender at a Capitol-area watering hole in Austin claims she refused state Sen. John Whitmire of Houston another drink — and got fired for doing it. Rebekah L. Lear claims she was working at the Cloak Room, a legislative hangout, on March 8 when Whitmire arrived "acting intoxicated" and with a "glazed...
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At least 80 Houston bars are scrambling to get their state licenses in order after the owners of the licensing service they used disappeared with their money and paperwork, the AP reports today. Bar owners found out this week that Butera License Service hadn't kept their licenses current; at least one bar, McElroy's Irish Pub, had to close for a day after owner Max McElroy found out his liquor license had been expired for two...
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has suspended its crackdown on drunks in bars while it investigates complaints from legislators and the public about how the program is run. The TABC stepped up arrests of intoxicated people in bars in September after the Legislature approved funding for 120 new TABC staff members, including 59 new agents, to help the agency decrease drunk driving. The idea was to keep people from being drunk in bars, which in...
Didn't Houstonist tell you that the state's crackdown on drunks in bars would change when it started affecting tourism? Ah, we were so right: The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has announced it will conduct an internal investigation of the program and will start retraining officers. TABC spokeswoman Carolyn Beck said officers will continue to arrest exceedingly drunk people, but the commission is taking complaints — of which there have been many — seriously.
State lawmakers are planning to take another look at the crackdown on drunks in bars after public outcry over busts at 30 Dallas-area bars this month. And it does seem people are pretty ticked off about the whole thing:

Missed Connections: Gefilte Fish...and "Chain Connections"