The latest articles on DEV Community by PourWire (@pourwire). https://dev.to/pourwire https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4220098%2Fe8af271f-2171-465d-b8d9-241741412da8.png https://dev.to/pourwire en PourWire Sun, 01 Nov 2026 06:48:12 +0000 https://dev.to/pourwire/how-long-a-liquor-license-takes-in-texas-new-york-city-and-los-angeles-data-from-1000-343k https://dev.to/pourwire/how-long-a-liquor-license-takes-in-texas-new-york-city-and-los-angeles-data-from-1000-343k <p>Disclosure: I run PourWire, which turns state liquor license and building permit filings into a daily list of restaurants and bars that are about to open. The numbers below come from that pipeline plus the states' own open data. The CSV is public under CC BY 4.0.</p> <p>The question "how long does a liquor license take" has a different answer in every state, and most answers online are guesses. Here is what the filings say as of October 2026.</p> <h2> The short answer </h2> <div class="table-wrapper-paragraph"><table> <thead> <tr> <th>Where</th> <th>Agency</th> <th>Typical time</th> <th>Measured on</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Texas (5 metros)</td> <td>TABC</td> <td>median <strong>24 days</strong> from submission to issue (middle half 18 to 34)</td> <td>144 MB and BG applications filed since June 2026</td> </tr> <tr> <td>New York City</td> <td>NY State Liquor Authority</td> <td>applications pending a median of <strong>118 days</strong> (middle half 62 to 212); 32% over 6 months</td> <td>920 restaurant and bar applications pending in the five boroughs</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Los Angeles County</td> <td>California ABC</td> <td>median <strong>67 days</strong> from application to issue (middle half 54 to 72)</td> <td>23 issued type 41, 47 and 48 licenses filed since July 2026</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div> <h2> How it was measured </h2> <p><strong>Texas.</strong> TABC publishes pending applications and issued licenses as two datasets on data.texas.gov. We matched our MB (mixed beverage) and BG (wine and beer) applications in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Waco-Temple to the original issue date in TABC License Information by owner and permit.</p> <p><strong>New York City.</strong> The SLA queue is the story. data.ny.gov "Current SLA Pending Licenses" lists every application still in review with its received date, so the age of what is waiting today is the honest number. Of the NYC applications we have tracked since June, 25 have been issued so far, a median of 105 days after the SLA received them. That figure is capped by our start date, so the real average is higher.</p> <p><strong>Los Angeles.</strong> California ABC keeps one license number from application to issue, so filing to issue is a direct join. Every new application goes through a 30-day public notice period before ABC investigates, which is why almost nothing issues in under a month (the fastest we saw was 36 days).</p> <h2> Get the data </h2> <ul> <li>CSV of the wait times with sample sizes and source links: <a href="https://github.com/Tintin-Intellegence-Limited/us-liquor-license-applications" rel="noopener noreferrer">us-liquor-license-applications on GitHub</a> (<code>data/liquor-license-wait-times.csv</code>), plus the last 30 days of new applications across every metro we track, refreshed weekly. Also on <a href="https://huggingface.co/datasets/pourwire/us-liquor-license-applications" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hugging Face</a>.</li> <li>Step by step lookup guides with the license class codes explained: <ul> <li><a href="https://pourwire.com/texas/tabc-pending-applications-guide?utm_source=devto&amp;utm_medium=article" rel="noopener noreferrer">Texas: pending TABC applications, MB, BG and FB</a></li> <li><a href="https://pourwire.com/new-york/sla-pending-applications-guide?utm_source=devto&amp;utm_medium=article" rel="noopener noreferrer">New York City: SLA wait times, classes 340, 240 and 370</a></li> <li><a href="https://pourwire.com/los-angeles/abc-pending-applications-guide?utm_source=devto&amp;utm_medium=article" rel="noopener noreferrer">Los Angeles: ABC wait times, types 41, 47 and 48</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p>If you are opening a restaurant, the practical takeaway is to file early in New York, budget about two months in Los Angeles, and expect about a month in Texas. If you sell to new restaurants, the pending lists are a 1 to 4 month head start on who is about to open.</p> <p>Corrections and better joins are welcome in the GitHub repo issues.</p> opendata dataset datascience python