A bill filed by State Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D) of Houston would allow liquor stores to join its supermarket brethren in allowing alcohol sales after 12 p.m. Liquor stores across Texas must lock their doors on Sundays, and grocery stores cannot sell alcohol before noon.
The bill was filed last week and only alters the existing code regarding Sundays allowing sales between noon and 10 p.m. Under current, law liquor stores must also close on major holidays including Christmas Day, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Day.
If Christmas or New Year’s falls on a Sunday, the stores must be closed on the following Monday; Thompson’s bill still requires that stores must remain closed on those holidays but strikes the Monday provision.
The bill would also extend the hours a store can operate from Monday to Saturday.
In 2011, the Texas Legislative Budget Board predicted that if several similar bills filed during the last session were passed, it would have generated and additional $7 Million in revenue for the state -- just for the Sunday sales alone. Those bills of course did not make it through the session.