Banning minors from restaurant bar areas offered as compromise

Banning minors from the bar areas of restaurants is "a reasonable compromise," Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said Thursday — and one that could lead to support for his effort to eliminate private club membership requirements.

The governor told the Deseret News he's trying to make the state's liquor laws "more American and less Middle Eastern" to help boost economic development, especially in the tourist industry.

"This is more of a fig leaf," Huntsman said, "which results in a significant perception problem that manifests itself in travel, tourism, business development and the state's image."

He said he'll continue to push to get rid of the applications and fees required to drink in a private club, Utah's equivalent of a bar, despite opposition from the Senate's majority Republicans.

And Huntsman said he sees no need to require restaurants to hide drink preparations to protect minors, as proposed by Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville. But the governor said he would support banning minors from the bar areas of restaurants.

"I think that's actually a reasonable compromise which would be what most every other state in America does," Huntsman said. "You don't need to wall off, or compartmentalize the display of alcohol."

The Utah Restaurant Association agrees, according to the association's president and CEO, Melva Sine. She said restaurants would "very much" support keeping underage customers out of bar areas. But requiring any modifications to those areas to hide liquor service "would be a huge expense" that many restaurants can't afford, Sine said.

Moving minors out of the bar areas of restaurants — where Utah law requires drinkers to eat or be waiting for a table — would eliminate the need for so-called "Zion curtains," barriers often made of glass intended to separate the display and dispensing of drinks from service.

The idea of a ban surfaced Wednesday at a legislative committee hearing on Waddoups' concerns about what minors are being exposed to in restaurants that dispense alcohol in the open. The Senate leader endorsed the ban and said he expects to see legislation enacting it in the upcoming session.

The ban was proposed by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which has supported Huntsman's reform efforts. The governor stopped short of saying it was the key to selling lawmakers on his private club proposal, but it appears to be part of his strategy.