The New Orleans Alcoholic Beverage Control Board was established by ordinance #7658 (MCS) in 1980 as an unattached board. Its seven members were to be appointed by the City Council for terms of four years. The ordinance gave the board two main functions:

1) To hear and decide cases for suspension or revocation of alcoholic beverage permits. 1) To hear and decide appeals from persons who have been denied alcoholic beverage permits by an administrative official in the enforcement of the Beer and Alcoholic Beverage ordinance. Prior to 1980 these functions had been the responsibility of the City Council. In 1975 Councilman Frank Friedler made an unsuccessful attempt to create a separate agency to relieve the Council of that responsibility. The Police Department was making many arrests for violations of the alcoholic beverage ordinance that the Council was able to consider. In 1977 the Citizens' Committee Against Crime recommended that the Friedler proposal be revived and adopted as a necessary anti-crime measure. Early in 1980 Councilman Sidney J. Barthelemy noted that it would be"...better if the Council no longer functioned as a quasi-judicial body in matters relating to alcoholic beverage outlet suspensions and revocations....the Council's time is being consumed more and more by the city's budget crunch, leaving little or no time to properly conduct the ABO hearings, which usually are held onec a month."