The Anti-Private Club

[Booze Laws] The Utah Legislature tinkers with Utah liquor law every year. Even when the laws don't need tinkering. Most often they make a mess of it. They are about to again.

The governor has proposed doing away with Utah's arcane system of private clubs. His idea is one of normalizing, not liberalizing. It's not normal to have to join a drinking establishment in order to have a drink, entertain guests, or simply socialize. Utah isn't normal. Tourists know it. Drinkers know it. And non-drinkers know it. It's the whacks on the right who think it's hunky-dory.

Senator after senator makes ill-informed comments about "private clubs" like this from Senator Waddoups: "They help us track drunk drivers." Even the Utah highway patrol knows that's not true. You may know that the Senator's wife was once hit by a drunk driver. At 9 a.m. Clubs don't even open until 10 a.m., so go figure.

Sane Utahns made a big mistake when they began educating Waddoups on this and other wrong headed thinking. Now it's proposed that instead of having Private Clubs, all persons as in ALL PERSONS entering a club must have their ID scanned which will store their barcode information for 30 days. Not even I have had a 30-day hangover from one night on the town, so start there and go backwards. The state doesn't need my information for 30 days. Nor 15, nor 10 nor 5, nor 1. Scanning all patrons is the exact opposite of what a "Private Club" was and ought to be. It's a conflict in terms--what's private about having your ID scanned? That's Anti-Private!!

Let a scanner check ID if they must to eliminate human error on minors who started shaving in 8th grade. But don't scan everyone’s. And don't store data. That's flat out wrong.

Get the governor's bill back on track. Get rid of club memberships. It's the right bill. (John Saltas)

Update: Private Clubs Closer to Death

[Booze News] Walking into a Utah bar without being stopped for membership fees and personal details came one step closer today at the end of the monthly UDABC Commission meeting.

Commissioner Mary Ann Mantes proposed adding a fifth classification to the current four-tier system. Class E would cover social clubs with no membership required. Would-be licensees would have to pay 25 percent more than the current initial license fee of $2,750 under Mantes’ proposal, which she issued as a first step “in beginning to structure a law that gains support of the legislature as well as a few groups opposed to non-membership.” Penalties on violations would also carry an additional 25 percent increase on fines.

Mantes wrote in an explanation of her proposal that the additional fee paid by licensees could be used for “increased scrutiny and oversight,” which might include hiring additional compliance officers. After the hearing, she said she proposed more oversight, “because MADD and others are concerned [no longer requiring membership] will cause more drinking.” Clubs who took the class E route, would, she added, be held to a slightly higher standard that membership bars.

She suggested a two-to-three year trial period for the new law to “allay fears of MADD, the Legislature, other “Anti” groups. That way, “if it turns out to be a disaster (which it won’t), the law change goes away,” she wrote.

Quite how many of the current 244 license holders would switch from D to E if this proposal, or something similar, were to become law is hard to gauge. The two recent public hearings on the issue saw a minority of bar owners advocating for membership to continue. Mantes’ proposal includes that the class D social club with membership stay on the books.

For Mantes, such a change “is worth a try in the interest of economic development.” Her fellow commissioner, Gordon Strachan, asked where all this would leave tourists. In a class E social club, Mantes replied, “They’d just walk in.”

UDABC Regulatory director Earl Dorius quickly jumped in to point out his staff had already been brain-storming approaches to this issue in the wake of the public hearings.

“I’m presenting this today to see if we can get something going,” Mantes said. (Stephen Dark)

DABC To Ponder Private Club Membership

[Liquor Laws] If members of the Utah Hospitality Association thought Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.’s endorsement of their plan to see an end to private club memberships in Utah meant DABC commissioners would rubber stamp it, they were sadly disillusioned.

This morning, the five-member DABC took up the issue at its monthly board meeting. The liquor control czars heard how well the state’s liquor stores were doing – sales and profits are up more than 11 percent. Then commissioner Bobbie Coray motioned for “a thorough analysis” of the requirement that bars charge private club membership. She said she had long sought to eliminate laws “that had no compelling reason.”

Commissioner Kathryn Balmforth, however, rose in stout defense of the private club restriction on bars, anchoring her position in the rights of what she termed the "non-drinking majority of Utah." She argued there appeared to be an attempt to “create an impression of a public groundswell” in favor of doing away with forcing bars to label themselves clubs and charge a $5 cover fee. “Maybe there is,” she said, “I just missed it.”

While some might sneer at Utah’s liquor laws for being different, she continued, those who wanted a drink could get one. “There’s nothing small-minded about the majority not being forced to pay for the costs of the societal abuse of alcohol.” Part of the DABC’s mandate, Balmforth reminded the audience of mostly bar owners, was to be aware of those who didn’t want liquor.

After complaining that only one side of the issue was being explored, Balmforth cited one reason why private club status was of value: record keeping. If a drunk left a bar and hit someone with his or her car, there would be a record of where and what that offender drank.

While Coray pointed out that private club membership was an issue she had long been concerned with, Balmforth appeared to find some back-door politicking going on. “We were all appointed by the governor but this is a legislative question,” she said. “I don’t think we have to carry his water on this particular debate.”

The commission voted, with the exception of Balmforth, to address the issue, including holding several public hearings. One commissioner noted, “This is the beginning of a long process.”
A number of unhappy UHA members walked out after the vote, one muttering about moralizing.

But UHA spokeswoman Lisa March McGarry said significant progress had been made. She said the UHA had been told that, for the first time, the Legislature and the DABC were willing to receive information from bar owners, the UHA, and other interested parties.

McGarry's concern, however, was that if and when private clubs were eliminated, additional elements might be added to the bill. One she described as a worrying “long shot” would require converting the entire penalty code currently used by the DABC to a criminal one, which “would be outrageous.” The main thing, she added, was the majority of commissioners had listened to tavern owners’ concerns.

Afterward, Coray said she didn’t think there was opposition from her own board to eliminate private club status. Rather, she said, “The concern is that we do it right.” (Stephen Dark)