Takeout alcohol in California allowed through year’s end. Why COVID rule may stick around

Would you rather sip that mai tai from the comfort of your couch? Raise a glass to this.

On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that to-go sales of alcoholic drinks will be allowed to continue through the end of 2021.

The rule was put into place at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when stay-at-home orders and other measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 kept restaurants, bars, wineries and other establishments with alcohol shuttered.

Expanded outdoor dining will also continue, the governor’s office said.

“As the state turns to post-pandemic life, we’ll continue to adapt best practices that have helped businesses transform customer experience for the better,” Newsom said Thursday in San Francisco.

The moves come as California prepares to lift most restrictions on businesses, including allowing restaurants to operate at full capacity, and social distancing in less than two weeks.

The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control relaxed rules in March allowing for establishments to sell alcoholic drinks to go, so long as food was part of the order.

In May, as the state began allowing outdoor service to resume, the department made it easier for restaurants to expand outdoor dining by offering temporary catering authorizations. That allowed restaurants to continue to sell alcohol in off-premises locations like sidewalks and adjacent parking lots where many set up tables. The department has issued more than 10,000 of those licenses, Newsom spokeswoman Amelia Matier told the Associated Press.

The extensions will permit restaurants and bars to continue the sale of to-go alcoholic beverages with food pickups and deliveries, along with other adaptations created during the pandemic.

Lawmakers could permanently extend the allowance of to-go cocktails through a bill by state Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa. He said his proposal would boost income for struggling restaurants and give customers greater choice.

Newsom previously announced that California’s Blueprint For a Safer Economy, a four-colored tier system which determined restrictions for businesses in the state’s 58 counties based on their new cases, positive tests and health equity, would come to an end June 15.

Sacramento and all but one of the surrounding counties which make up the six-county capital region — El Dorado, Placer, Sutter and Yolo — are all in the orange tier, which is “moderate” and the second-lowest tier. Only Yuba, which shares a health office with Sutter, is still in red, or the second-toughest “substantial” tier.

As of Thursday morning, there has been nearly 3.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 62,000 deaths from the respiratory disease.

Restaurants have struggled amid the stop-and-start restrictions that often varied by county. Even now, counties with the lowest virus transmission rates can only allow indoor dining at 75% capacity if all patrons are fully vaccinated. Nearly a third of California restaurants permanently closed during the pandemic, the California Restaurant Association told lawmakers last month.

Now, as the state reopens fully, many employers say they are struggling to find workers.

The chairwoman of the California Republican Party said Newsom’s announcement, which she called a photo op, came too late for restaurants forced to close and workers who lost wages.

“California’s restaurant industry suffered more than most under Gavin Newsom’s overbearing shutdowns,” Jessica Millan Patterson said in a statement.

This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Takeout alcohol in California allowed through year’s end. Why COVID rule may stick around."