Silly Liquor Laws Are Still on the Books

October 8, 2015 – Prohibition ended 82 years ago but sometimes it feels like a time warp when it comes to buying a drink.  Take Happy Hour.  Massachusetts is an unhappy place being the first state to enact a law in 1984 banning Happy Hour.  Others followed including Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, North Carolina, Indiana, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Alaska and Utah.  Hard to believe there ever was a Happy Hour in Utah.

Speaking of which, order a drink in a restaurant in Utah and the bartender has to mix and pour it out of sight, behind a curtain or barrier of some kind.  It’s called the “Zion Curtain” and the logic of it escapes us.  You can have two drinks on the table but you can’t order a double.  And you have to order food to go with the drink.  Appetizers count.

Alaska, which still has a frontier feel, but no Happy Hour as noted, has a strange law.  You can’t give alcohol to a moose but you can give it to kids at home, not in a bar or restaurant, and it must be given by the parents or a guardian.  Since it is in the privacy of the home, why have a law?

Several states limit the number of licenses granted to bars and restaurants, which leads to a healthy market in trading licenses.  Like NYC Taxi licenses, they are highly prized with reports of one in Montana going for $1 million while New Jersey can boast a license selling for $1.6 million.

Idaho’s license quota is based on one for every 1,500 people.  Based on Boise’s population of approximately 214,500 in 2013, they have only 143 places to get a drink.  But laws are meant to be broken, or at least adjusted.  We credit Money Magazine for this gem created by Idaho lawmakers:  “…in order to grant an exception to Clark House, a historic bed and breakfast on Hayden Lake, the Legislature passed an amendment lifting the rural license ban on any hotel that ‘has been in existence for at least 75 years and has been on the historic register for a minimum of 10 years, is situated within 500 yards of a natural lake containing a minimum of 36,000 acre feet of water when full with a minimum of 32 miles of shoreline, and is located in a county with a minimum population of 65,000.’

Just for comparison, we checked a local suburban zip code here in California, and we have a license for every 330 residents.  Not moving to Idaho any time soon.