In 1999 and 2000 former state Rep. Susan Koehn considered a measure that would have changed the law on special alcohol permits for banquets. The hotel and hospitality industries believed it was too hard to get a permit to sell alcohol at a special event that lasted more than 72 hours, such as a four- or five-day convention.

In 2000 Koehn introduced a bill that would make it easier to get long convention permits. And, sources said, within 24 hours she got a call from Bill Evans, the church's official lobbyist. It was a cordial but short conversation: The church didn't want any changes to state liquor laws.

Even though Koehn was the House Rules Committee chairwoman — and so controlled the flow of all the bills in the House — she didn't push her own bill. She knew it was finished. And it died in her own Rules Committee with no hearings.

A similar situation occurred in 1989 when former Sen. Richard Carling, an active Mormon, was co-chairman of a special state task force exploring changes to Utah's archaic liquor laws.

Carling made sure church officials were invited to every public meeting of the task force.

"I made a real point not to ask the church directly" what church officials may or may not like about the proposed changes, Carling told the Deseret News last week. "If you ask, they may say no." And Carling guessed that any inquiry on changing the liquor laws would bring a "no."

Jerry Fenn was then chairman of the state liquor commission. He is now one of the church's lobbyists on Capitol Hill. "Jerry may have said something to them, informed them. And (church) representatives were always in the audience at hearings," Carling recalled.

In the end, the church did not oppose eliminating mini-bottles and other changes Carling's task force recommended. And the overhaul bill flew through the Legislature.

"We had a good argument: A minibottle was an ounce-and-three-fourths of liquor," Carling said. Going to a dispensing system would put only one ounce in each drink. People were actually getting drunker, driving drunk and harming themselves and others because of the then minibottle law, Carling said.

"We knew liquor by the drink would never fly" with the church and others, Carling said. "But step by step — find the reaction and deal with it — we were able to" overhaul Utah liquor laws for the first time in decades. "And people could get a drink at their restaurant table without having to get up, buy a minibottle, bring it back and pour their own drink."

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