Repeal of Prohibition (1933)
The 21st Amendment ended the 18th Amendment's nationwide alcohol ban. It returned authority over alcohol sales to individual states, each of which built its own licensing system.
Texas created an alcohol control agency in the years after repeal, establishing the permit regime that bars and restaurants navigate today.
Every Texas establishment serving alcohol now needs a state permit, which is why La Patrona Mariscos filed with TABC rather than simply opening.
The reason a restaurant needs a beer-and-wine license at all traces to 1933, when states regained the power to regulate alcohol and set up agencies like TABC to issue permits.
