The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board on Tuesday voted to rescind a previous order that forced bars and restaurants to stop serving alcohol after 11 p.m. The measure went into effect immediately upon their vote.
Board members on July 27 unanimously voted to enact the 11 p.m. alcohol sales curfew as cases of COVID-19 were surging statewide and Alabama’s ICU beds were filling with patients stricken with the disease.
On Tuesday, the Board approved a new order, which notes that the 50 percent occupancy requirement remains in place. Customers and workers must also wear masks, if not eating or drinking, and remain six feet from others, according to the order.
The Board’s decision to rescind the curfew comes as the number of new COVID-19 cases in Alabama have declined following Gov. Kay Ivey’s statewide mask order in mid-July, but public health officials remain concerned that the number of COVID-19 patients in state hospitals remains too high.
Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris told APR on Tuesday that while the state has made improvements since a surge in cases in July, and the number of hospitalized coronavirus patients in Alabama is about half what it was in early August, “they’re still a lot higher than they were back in the spring, so I wish we would continue to see more improvement, but I think we’re definitely much better than we were a couple of months ago.”
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House’s coronavirus task force, suggested to Ivey and Harris on her July visit to the state that Alabama close its bars, which health officials say can be breeding grounds for the spread of COVID-19.
One of Ivey’s advisors suggested closing the state’s bars, but the board was instead tasked with finding a different solution, board administrator Mac Gipson told board members during the July 27 meeting prior to the vote to enact the curfew.
The plan at first was to cut off alcohol sales at 10 p.m., Gipson said at the July meeting, but bar owners contacted the board over concerns about potential losses in revenue, so it was pushed back to 11 p.m.
Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox on Saturday issued a warning that tickets would be issued for bars that exceeded the city’s 50 percent occupancy limit.
Maddox was responding to photos posted to the Facebook page of the band The Velcro Pygmies playing live at the Tuscaloosa bar Rhythm and Brews, where patrons were tightly packed together and not wearing masks. The post was later deleted after going viral.
Maddox in August ordered the city’s bars to shut down for two weeks in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.
