April 5, 2001

The Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee of the Texas House of Representatives will consider two bills on Monday - 4/9/01 at 2:00 P.M.

Please contact committee members in your area and ask them to:

SUPPORT HB 2958, by Hope. This bill allows us to have 60 days to gather signatures for a petition to call an election to allow sales of alcohol in restaurants only. Current law only allows 30 days and it is difficult to gather the signatures of 25% of registered voters needed to put the issue on the ballot. TRA members in many chapters have either attempted to gather the signatures and failed for lack of time or have been dissuaded from attempting the task because of the short time period.

OPPOSE HB 210, by Longoria. This bill would mandate drink counting; limiting to two per hour the number of drinks served to a customer. Drink counting doesn't help when the patron comes in and is already intoxicated or approaching intoxication. It doesn't help if the patron has the ability to get drinks from multiple sources—a drink at the bar, a drink at the table, a drink from a friend or by bar hopping. In these cases a server may be fooled into relying on the drink count. Servers should make a reasonable judgment based upon the appearance and actions of the patron, as opposed to basing that judgment on how many drinks a patron is recorded to have consumed. Drink counting is very difficult to enforce when you have patrons who are served a bottle of wine and yet you're under the obligation to see that they don't drink more than two glasses out of it during any one-hour period.

Chairman Ron Wilson, Houston, 512-463-0744
Vice-Chairman Ken Yarbrough, Houston, 512-463-0648
Rep. Kino Flores, Mission, 512-463-0704
Rep. Tony Goolsby, Dallas, 512-463-0454
Rep. Pat Haggarty, El Paso, 512-463-0728
Rep. Delwin Jones, Lubbock, 512-463-0542
Rep. Joe Moreno, Houston, 512-463-0614
Rep. Art Reyna, San Antonio, 512-463-0642
Rep. Mike Wise, Weslaco, 512-463-0530

Source: Texas Restaurant Association