California’s alcohol bureaucracy is now allowing alcohol to be served at the new street and sidewalk restaurant areas and is also permitting links between bars and restaurants as of Friday. That’s been unheard of in Santa Barbara since the years when cowboys on horseback rode in the Fiesta parade clutching cans of Budweiser.
Just as good tips make restaurant work worthwhile for wait staff, alcohol sales can tip the balance to profitability for their bosses, who are near-crisis from the two-month COVID shutdown.
For restaurants, they learned they could reopen on Wednesday, got the go-ahead for sidewalk and street dining on Thursday, and learned on Friday that alcohol service was now allowed by California’s Alcohol Beverage Control’s fourth extraordinary regulatory rule for the crisis. The fifth permitted bars to join forces with restaurants for full-service meals.