The spirits stopped flowing Tuesday at two Lawrence liquor stores whose owners are under fire from the state’s office of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

The state shut down the Cork & Barrel stores at 901 Miss. and 2000 W. 23rd St. after a ruling by the ABC director upheld an earlier decision to revoke the liquor licenses of owners Dan and Jill Blomgren.

The Blomgrens are asking for a stay of the ruling as they appeal it. If the stay is granted, the stores could reopen as soon as this morning.

“It’s just business as usual,” Dan Blomgren said Tuesday night. “Tomorrow at 9 we reopen, and things go on again.”

The stores closed after ABC Director Thomas W. Groneman announced he had upheld a Nov. 15 decision by an ABC hearing officer to revoke the Blomgrens’ licenses.

Groneman agreed with an earlier finding that Dan Blomgren made false statements on forms used to renew his liquor license in May 2002 and had an illegal, hidden interest in another store, Parkway Liquor, in 2001 and 2002. State law prohibits one person from having an ownership interest in more than one liquor store, but it allows spouses to own a store each.

Dan Blomgren said he expected Tuesday’s ruling.

“They’re all working on the same team, so no surprise at all,” he said. “He’s just covering the back of his agent that found me guilty the first time.”

The next step is for the Blomgrens to appeal to Secretary of Revenue Joan Wagnon, who oversees the ABC. If she upholds the decision, the Blomgrens could appeal in District Court.

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“I’m hoping that the further it gets out from the ABC, the more impartiality you’ll see,” Dan Blomgren said.

Dan Blomgren maintains he had a perfectly legal arrangement to manage Parkway Liquor, 3514 Clinton Parkway. He said after he sold Parkway Liquor to a friend he no longer had an ownership interest but earned 3 percent of gross sales as a management fee.

Blomgren drew the following analogy: You sell your house to someone. All the paperwork is transferred to the new owner’s name. But they begin paying you to cut the grass.

“Two years later, somebody drives down the street and says ‘Dan still owns the house. He’s cutting the grass,'” Blomgren said. “The fact that I was cutting the grass proves to the ABC that I still owned the house.”

But Groneman found Blomgren used “subterfuge” to conceal a continuing interest in Parkway Liquor. Parkway Liquor has since been sold, and none of the allegations involve the current owners.

Dan Blomgren owns the store at 901 Miss. Jill Blomgren owns the store on 23rd Street, but Dan Blomgren runs the day-to-day operations.

Groneman also upheld a finding that Jill Blomgren was in violation of several liquor regulations but that she didn’t make false statements to the ABC.

The Blomgrens already have admitted to making improper deliveries on 13 different occasions to organizations that did not have a liquor license. But they’ve said the violations weren’t serious enough to cause Jill Blomgren’s license to be revoked.