TABC Certification Online News: Austin-based Twin Liquors fights to stay in business

The company is unlike other liquor stores … Their business dates back to the late 1800s and currently has 76 locations across Texas. They are successful and prominent to say the least. But the whole case is a result of another raid conducted a year earlier, on March 22, 2012, on a Yassine family nightclub company. What started as a simple investigation of tax avoidance on the Yassine family became a larger case of cocaine dealing, money laundering, and murder. The Yassine’s had initially been accused of cheating on their income and alcohol taxes, but the TABC is alleging criminal ties between Twin Liquors and Yassine Enterprises.

On March 18, 2014, Twin Liquors filed suit against the TABC, requesting a judge issue both temporary and permanent restraining orders to prevent the TABC from shuttering their business. The company accuses the state of abusing their right to due process and calls the TABC’s efforts a “witch hunt.”