Controlling Utah liquor laws

Although he could not estimate the percentage of his business that comes from Utah, he did say that most Utah customers come to Evanston only because it happens to be on the way to the Uinta Mountains or Flaming Gorge. The majority of customers who come to Evanston strictly for alcohol do so because of a lack of selection in Utah, especially of specialty wines or microbrew beer.

"The selection is an issue, and I hope it always is an issue," Bateman said. "The business we do get from Utah . . . would disappear, and it would hurt us."

Bootlegging is always a concern for Utah authorities, who worry about public safety and the loss of tax dollars because of out-of-state purchases. Then again, so do officials in most states, since nearly every state limits the amount of alcohol a person can bring from another state. Additionally, only a dozen states allow alcohol shipments, and those are almost exclusively wine-producing states.

Portsmouth, N.H., boasts the country's largest liquor store, at least according to Sgt. Jim Lyman with the Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement. Because of cheap prices and no sales tax, people from throughout the Northeast make runs to the state-owned store in Portsmouth. To boost business even further, Lyman said that the state spends more on advertising its cheap prices throughout New England than Maine spends on liquor enforcement.

It is not uncommon, Lyman said, for stings to be set up at the borders to catch bootleggers (one gallon of hard liquor can be legally brought into Maine). "The most efficient way is to sit in the parking lot and get their license plate numbers."

At the same time, however, Maine is perfectly accommodating to Canadians who make trips to Maine because of their country's high taxes.

"Canada comes to Maine, and Maine goes to New Hampshire," he said. "It works both ways."

The Idaho border towns of Malad and Franklin always seem to attract a large Utah contingent, many of whom return to Utah with Idaho beer or liquor. Liquor stores in the Nevada towns of Wendover and Mesquite also sell a lot of their stock to Utah residents.

In those cases, however, the attraction of those towns often is more gambling than alcohol. Idaho has the Powerball lottery, which this summer reached almost $200 million, and Nevada has casinos.

"We come about every five weeks," Jolene Hackwell of Salt Lake City said on a typically crowded Sunday at La Tienda in Franklin. Usually, Hackwell is joined by her sisters, and they usually return with the "kind of beer you can't get in Utah."

"It's a girl thing," sister Patty Messner said. "It's a family outing."

Idaho and Wyoming authorities know their border towns serve Utah customers. Since both states are control states like Utah, neither minds the added revenue that Utahns give to each state.