Utah: Mommy, Where Do Cocktails Come From?
Utah law requires many restaurants to mix drinks behind a partition to shield the act from curious minors-but a new bill would allow it back in the open; the ‘Zion Curtain’ becomes the ‘Zion Moat’
Source: WSJ
By JIM CARLTON
March 16, 2017
When Taylor Steensen takes a drink order at the Buffalo Wild Wings bar in this Salt Lake City suburb, the server must dart behind a wall to pour it.
Utah law demands she shield diners from the lurid sight.
“The hardest part is you disappear to get a guest’s order, and they ask, ‘Where were you?’ ” said the 22-year-old Ms. Steensen, who spent the evening vanishing and reappearing as she made drinks one night last week.
Restaurants serving alcohol in the Beehive State must follow stringent rules, including that many deploy a partition to hide the act of drink-making-a “Zion Curtain,” Utahns call it.
Now, Utah is on track to lift the veil.
The partition rule, mandated in 2009 for new restaurants, was aimed at preventing underage diners from becoming inspired to imbibe. Last week, the Utah legislature passed a bill that offers another option, what locals call the “Zion Moat.”
If the governor signs the bill into law as expected, restaurants by next year will be able to replace Zion Curtains with buffer zones between family tables and bars. It would require a 10-foot zone around a bar that is off-limits to under-21 patrons if the bar is in full view-or a 5-foot zone if the view is partially hidden.
“I guess if they want to put in a real moat with water that’s their business,” said Republican state Sen. Jerry Stevenson, a sponsor of the bill, who expects restaurants will be creative with their buffer zones. “If you want to put in some potted plants that’s OK. Or a row of tables” for adults.
Some see the buffers as protection-for drinkers. “To me, not having loud kids in the bar area is a good thing,” said the manager of a restaurant-bar in Sandy that, as with other eateries in operation before the 2009 law, has already been allowed under a “grandfather” provision to use a Zion Moat.
Utah’s restrictive alcohol policies echo the leanings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is influential in the state and instructs members to abstain. The Curtain moniker is a sardonic reference to the Mormon concept of Zion as a community of the pure in heart.
“Whether it’s a physical barrier to shield children from alcohol preparation areas or a designated distance for the same purpose,” said Mormon Church spokesman Eric Hawkins, “the point is that the state’s alcohol policy should protect the safety and well-being of state residents, particularly minors.”
Other states have unusual alcohol limits, including Oklahoma, which prohibits the sale of refrigerated beer higher than 3.2% in alcohol, and Pennsylvania, which bans beer sales in stores selling hard liquor. South Carolina in 2014 repealed its ban on drinking on Election Day. Massachusetts prohibits happy hours.
Utah began loosening its rules after a visitor influx during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and as more non-Mormons moved in. A local brew, Polygamy Porter, playfully invokes a bit of history on its label: “Why have just one!”
In 2009, lawmakers dropped a requirement that drinking establishments and restaurants charge patrons an additional fee to have an alcoholic drink, imposing the rule requiring new restaurants to have partitions to shield drink-making, although not the drink drinking, which can be done in full view.
Eateries put up barriers of translucent glass, Sheetrock and other opaque material to mask mixing and pouring. When the Brio Tuscan Grille opened in Murray six years ago, it used a frosted-glass partition with saloon doors for the bartenders. “The only real complaints you get are from people out of town,” said general manager Steven Rose. “They think it’s absolutely absurd.”
After the Porcupine Pub & Grille in Salt Lake City put up a Zion Curtain 18 months ago, it found it also had to change the route to the restroom, said Nic James, a manager at the pub. “We had to block the access because people going to the bathroom could see a drink being poured,” she said. “We had to redirect them down a hallway.”
Utah lawmakers tried in 2013 to remove the requirement, but failed. The latest measure comes as lawmakers have also passed a bill that lowers the legal limit for driving while intoxicated to 0.05%, the nation’s strictest.
Letting all eateries use a moat “is really a fairness issue,” said Sen. Stevenson, the bill sponsor. “All restaurants should be on the same playing field.” Republican Gov. Gary Herbert expects to sign the bill this month, his spokesman said.
At Iggy’s Sports Grill in Sandy, which existed before the partition law and so gets to use a moat, general manager Andy Hall says that under the new law he may have to expand its zone, consisting of an over-21 lunch counter. That would mean fewer family tables and less revenue.
“The idea is that if children watch alcohol being served and everybody is having a great time, it’s very seductive to them,” said Mr. Hall. But “I don’t think it has anything to do with whether they end up drinking or not.”
The Zion Curtain at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Sandy is a wall adorned with a row of decorative beer spigots that don’t spout beer. Manager Zak Gressmen said out-of-state visitors complain the most: “They want to know where the bartender is going and whether the taps are fake.”
“I do think it hurts my tips,” said Ms. Steensen, who the night last week was acting as both bartender and server, “because I’m gone so much.”
Until the new law goes into effect, Ms. Steensen will be left making the roughly 100 trips she takes behind the Zion Curtain on busy nights. Brandon Elmont, general manager, said that even if the bill passes it might cost too much to take down the barrier.
Locals such as Joseph Galloway, 29, take their servers’ disappearances in stride. “Most of the time I’m talking,” said the sales representative as he nursed a beer he didn’t see poured, “and I don’t notice they’ve left.”