Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board

Alcoholic Beverage Sales — Wet County, Spirituous/Vinous Retail Confined to Dothan

Houston County itself charges no fee for alcohol sales — the license comes entirely from the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, recorded at the state layer, and (for one specific case below) from the City of Dothan. Houston County is classified Wet county-wide on the ABC Board's own table: state ABC package stores can locate anywhere in the county, and beer and malt-beverage retail sale and on-premise consumption are licensed under the general state framework the same as in any other wet county. Layered on top of that county-wide wet status, Ala. Code §45-35-21 confines something narrower: the retail sale of spirituous or vinous liquors specifically — hard liquor and wine, not beer — outside an ABC store is restricted by this still-current local act to retail liquor establishments within the City of Dothan's corporate limits, each requiring both a state license and a separate City of Dothan license. A restaurant or retail store outside Dothan, in unincorporated Houston County or in another county municipality such as Ashford or Cottonwood, can sell beer at retail on the same wet-county basis as anywhere else, but cannot sell spirituous or vinous liquor at retail outside an ABC store without meeting this Dothan-only restriction; a business inside Dothan needing that specific license needs the City of Dothan's own alcohol license in addition to the state ABC license.