After the Rainbow Lounge raid, the reminder may not be needed for years to come — perhaps not until the 50th anniversary in 2019. But the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is now distributing a daily e-mail to supervisors that lists important dates in history, including the June 28 anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion. TABC Administrator Alan Steen told Dallas Voice last week that he’s convinced neither his agents nor Fort Worth police officers knew it was the 40th anniversary of Stonewall when they went into the Rainbow Lounge on June 28.
“It’s embarrassing to say, but we had no clue, and I truly believe Fort Worth had no clue,” Steen said. “We do have a mechanism in place now to have a clue.”
TABC spokeswoman Carolyn Beck said this week the mechanism Steen was referring to is a Texas Homeland Security Briefing sent out by the Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Information Analysis. It’s unclear whether DPS’s e-mail briefing already included the Stonewall anniversary or whether it was added following the Rainbow Lounge raid, but in any case the briefing wasn’t being used by TABC until now, Beck said.
There’s no word on whether the Fort Worth Police Department plans to implement a similar reminder.
