Utah is raising a glass to change

SALT LAKE CITY - Guy walks into a bar in Utah - and easily gets a drink.

Come this summer, that simple scenario will become a reality: No special fees, club memberships, or partitions required.

After more than 40 years, some of the strictest - and strangest - liquor laws in the nation are being hustled out the barroom door, yet another sign that even a state dominated by teetotaling Mormons is willing to reconsider decades-old mores if it helps the economy.

No longer will bartenders be separated from customers by a glass partition known as a "Zion Curtain." And patrons won't have to join a social club or pay a membership fee before entering bars.

"Having to pay $5 or $10 to join a club to drink any kind of alcoholic beverage is absurd," said Mark Caraway, a San Diego businessman who travels to Salt Lake City at least once a month.

Tourists frequently leave bars and restaurants here after becoming flummoxed at what it takes to get a drink. And the state's tourism industry has frequently complained that the liquor laws send lucrative conventions and skiers fleeing to neighboring Colorado.

Utah has required anyone entering a bar to be a member of the club or a member's guest. At most bars, anyone can become a member by paying a state-ordered fee for a three-week pass that costs at least $4. An annual membership costs at least $12. A separate membership is required at each bar.

Those who live here are often just as infuriated by Utah's liquor laws, and they have developed crafty ways to bend the rules.

Buying a temporary membership lets someone take up to seven guests into a bar without the visitors filling out forms or paying fees. An annual membership allows an unlimited number of guests. Many people pool together memberships with friends so they never buy more than one membership, if any, per year.

For years, conservative lawmakers who didn't drink said the memberships prevented barhopping. It was far from true. There are at least two annual, highly publicized events in Salt Lake City in which close to 100 people in costumes go pub crawling.

If anything, some locals say, eliminating the membership requirement will spare them from sitting out in the cold waiting for friends to sponsor them, and it should free up more money.

Donaca Bilyard, a Salt Lake City flight attendant who was having a drink downtown at Murphy's Bar & Grill on St. Patrick's Day, said the changes should make Utah look a little more normal.

Besides improving the state's $6 billion tourism industry, the liquor-law overhaul is meant to send a subtle message that Utah welcomes non-Mormons.

In Utah, about 60 percent of the population and more than 80 percent of state lawmakers belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which tells its members to abstain from alcohol.

In the cultural divide between Mormons and non-Mormons, the church's influence on alcohol policy is among the most visible sources of contention. In 1968, at the urging of church officials, voters by a 2-1 margin killed a proposal to allow the sale of liquor in restaurants.

The next year, the state's private club system as it is known today was created, primarily as a way to shield the state's Mormons from being exposed to alcohol while giving drinkers a shot at the state's heavily taxed booze.