The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the Utah legislature has passed "historic" liquor law reform that "was hammered out during weeks of intense negotiations with Huntsman's staff, legislators, and representatives of the hospitality and restaurant industries and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." We won’t rehash what we think about needing a church’s approval to pass laws (see our previous post here). Instead, we’d like to point out that this reform, S.B. 187, does not “normalize” Utah’s liquor laws as the legislature claims, but rather replaces one set of stupid laws with a different set of stupid laws. The major points are:
Utah’s pointless and inconvenient "private club" laws, which required you to be a member or a guest of a member to get into a bar, are eliminated. This has no real effect on Utahns, who knew how to game the system, but tourists will appreciate it.
Instead, bars are required to scan and electronically verify the driver’s license of anyone appearing less than 35 years old, with the scan to be stored for seven days. Hello Big Brother!
In currently existing restaurants, bartenders may now pass a drink to a customer across the bar. Yes indeed, you could not previously have a drink handed to you across the bar in a restaurant. For reals. A server had to take the drink from behind the bar and walk around to your side to give it to you.
In restaurants built from now on, alcohol cannot be stored in a bar area, and drinks may not be prepared in a bar area. Instead, drinks must be mixed and prepared in a separate room so that the drink-preparation process is not visible to customers. Why? Because apparently, seeing someone make a mixed drink will "entice children to take up drinking." Meanwhile, this ensures that no new chain restaurants open in Utah ever again.
Separately, the Senate killed H.B. 349, which would have allowed bars and restaurants to serve normal-strength beer instead of the watered-down Utah version. Currently, bars and restaurants can serve real beer only if they buy it in bottles from the state-run liquor store at an 86% markup.
Just in case you are thinking of visiting or living in Utah, we've made this handy map so you can find what you need.
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