Utah liquor laws, as mixed up as some drinks(2)
Gov. Gary R. Herbert of Utah said that he thought the state’s laws were working, but would probably continue to be tweaked. (More changes were proposed for a special session of the Legislature called for Wednesday.)
“I think right now, with what we’ve put on the table the last couple of years, we have a good balance for Utah,” Mr. Herbert, a Republican, said. “It works with our hospitality industry, it works with our tourists that come in.”
The end of the private club law made it easier for Marv White and Rob Aagaard to try to visit all 118 of Salt Lake City’s bars, and write about it on their blog, DrinkSLC.
“We could never have done DrinkSLC if there was the private club rule,” Mr. Aagaard, 30, said recently at an Irish pub in Salt Lake City.
“Well, we could have — it just would have cost us,” Mr. White, 34, said.
They still bristle at the remaining restrictions. “There’s no rationality,” Mr. White said. “It’s almost capricious.”
Stiff drinks and doubles are illegal in Utah. Bars and restaurants must use meters on their liquor bottles to make sure they do not pour more than 1.5 ounces at a time. Other liquors can be added to cocktails in lesser amounts, not to exceed 2.5 ounces of liquor in a drink, as long as they are poured from bottles clearly marked “flavoring.”
It is illegal to stiffen a drink with a second shot: under the law a drinker can order a vodka and tonic with a shot of whiskey on the side, but not a vodka tonic with a shot of vodka on the side.
The complexity of the law was evident the other day at an alcohol awareness class that servers are required to take. The instructor, Jerry Diana, explained that by law drinks cannot be served to restaurant patrons unless they also order food.
“Once a person says they’re not going to eat, they can’t have an alcoholic beverage,” Mr. Diana told the budding waiters.
One of the biggest complaints of the industry is the dearth of licenses, which are awarded based on population.
Steven Maxwell spent $1 million building a dining club in Salt Lake City, Maxwell’s East Coast Eatery, putting in exposed brick walls, black leather booths and a 100-foot-long oval bar made of reclaimed hickory.
Then Mr. Maxwell, who has other clubs in the state, could not get a dining club license. So the strongest thing he sells with his food is beer that is 3.2 percent alcohol by weight.
“Now I don’t know if I can recoup that money,” Mr. Maxwell said. “Why would I continue to invest in Utah if they’re not helping you, if they’re hurting you?”
The new law even brought a small change this month to the Shooting Star Saloon in Huntsville, which opened in 1879 and bills itself as the oldest continuously running bar in the state, with a jar hanging by the front door that was used to sell moonshine during Prohibition.
The law required the bar — which sells nothing stronger than beer alongside its nationally renowned burgers — to buy an electronic scanner to check the identifications of the younger-looking bikers, skiers and members of the military who mix there.
“For us, it’s about the history,” said Leslie Sutter, an owner, as she stood across the bar from the stuffed head of a nearly 300-pound St. Bernard named Buck. “The laws and the statutes are going to come and go, and we’re going to stay consistent.”
