Utah looks to liberalize serving laws. To a point.

Some of us discovered yesterday that we’d failed to set our clocks ahead over the weekend, leaving us an hour behind everyone else. In Utah, lawmakers must’ve looked at their calendars and realized their gap was more like a century. They agreed to catch up, more or less, by updating liquor-serving laws that had stigmatized their restaurants as the Amish of foodservice.

Under an accord that was hammered out as a way to boost tourism, no longer will someone in the state have to join a “club,” with minimum annual dues of $12, if they wanted a drink with dinner. Nor will restaurants be required anymore to separate patrons from the bartender by a screens, known as Zion curtains, or a 10-foot wall, as one lawmaker had urged. A bartender could pour a drink and hand it to the patron, a quantum leap from where the heavily Mormon state had been in its attitude toward drink sales.

But reason didn’t totally prevail, not by a long shot. Patrons are to be carded until age 35. The proof of age is not only checked, but scanned or otherwise captured by the serving establishment and kept for a week, a probable spoiler for anyone concerned about identity theft.

And the 10-foot-wall requirement wasn’t scuttled, just narrowed in its focus. New restaurants will have to include the partition, so children can’t see drinks being mixed or poured, and existing places would be required to add one if they renovate.

The compromise measure has yet to be put to a vote, but proponents and opponents agree that it will likely be passed, and quickly. If passed, the new law would go into effect in mid-May.

Restaurant bars: The devil's YouTube?

I don’t know why the nation is preoccupied with fluff like the economy or wars when our very future is being threatened—-by Chili’s, no less. Our youths are probably imperiled by the likes of Applebee’s, T.G.I. Friday’s and Ruby Tuesday, too, but they weren’t singled out by the president of Utah’s senate, who wants walls built between restaurants’ bars and the areas used by the public. Otherwise, fears Republican Michael Waddoups, youngsters can see drinks being made! Why not just sit ‘em down and slide a cosmo their way?

In any other state, such a suggestion would be dismissed as outlandish showboating for the fundamentalist right. But not in Utah, where headlines announced yesterday that full-strength beer can now be sold. Because of the Mormon population, drinking can be as contentious there as abortion is elsewhere.

Places that serve liquor already have to isolate drink prep areas with a partition, known locally as a Zion curtain. But it can be a short partition made of glass, which still exposes young people to the glamour of alcohol, in the view of abundant pro-temperance forcese.

Waddoups learned that firsthand when he visited a Chili’s in January, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. The paper reported that a bill introduced this week would require the construction of a wall at least 10 feet high between bartenders' work areas and where patrons mill about. It was introduced not by Waddoups but by a fellow Republican, state Sen. John Valentine.

The initiative does provide for an alternative: Mix and pour the drinks away from public view in a back room. Which, in at least some instances, might have to be constructed.

The measure has already been approved by the Senate Business and Labor Committee, according to the Trib.

The proposal to halt public drink preparation was filed as Utah pols were considering a measure that would eliminate the need for even the Zion curtain. Proponents like the governor argue that Utah has to catch up with the times if it wants to foster tourism, and that means loosening up the state’s serving laws. For instance, restaurants’ bars would be acknowledged for what they are, not private clubs nestled check-to-jowl with dining rooms, as the law currently regards them. Visitors wanting a beer would not have to go through the charade of joining a “club.”

The Senate is debating the perils of drinks being mixed in full view after passing a measure Tuesday that permits employees to bring guns into the parking lots of the places where they work.

Seems to me they may want to rethink priorities.

Curtain to come up on Utah drinking?

One of those pesky time warps has settled over Utah, where elders fear the sight of a martini being mixed could lead youngsters to ruin. Indeed, it’s illegal for a restaurant to shake or stir one in front of patrons. Bartenders have to function behind what’s called a Zionist curtain, lest a young person grow curious about drink and succumb to temptation.

Gov. Jon Huntsman has had enough of that puritan view, according to local press reports. He told The Deseret News, a paper serving the state’s huge Latter Day Saints population, that state liquor laws have to become “more American and less Middle Eastern” if Utah wants to cultivate more tourism. He’s let it be known that he plans to push for the modernization, much to the delight of the state’s restaurant trade.

But Huntsman is opposed by the powerful leader of the state Senate, who subscribes to the view that seeing a drink being made could lead more youngsters to try one when they’re of age. He wants to avert that sort of enticement.

Keep in mind that you can’t just walk into a Utah bar and order a mojito. Technically, there are no bars, just “drinking clubs” that you have to join before exiting the desert sun for a frosty draft.

As a compromise Huntsman has suggested that the Zionist curtain be lifted permanently and instead minors be prohibited by law from sitting at the bar.

Whether you drink or not, you have to hope he succeeds, just on principle.