Don’t let us catch you eating what we don’t think is a meal.
Bar owners have had a particularly tough go of it during the pandemic, with the governor completely shutting them down following a brief reopening early this summer, but they are getting creative as the lockdown continues. According to the state board of alcoholic beverage control, bars can open if — and only if — they offer “bona fide meals” in conjunction with their wine, beer and cocktails.
If they do, they essentially function as restaurants and must follow the rules imposed on dining establishments, and as long as Monterey County remains in the most restrictive shutdown category, that means take-out and outdoor dining only.
The ABC’s standards for what constitutes bona fide meals are fairly strict. They can’t be pre-packaged sandwiches and salads, or appetizers and side dishes like fries and chicken wings.
Snacks such as bagged pretzels or popcorn aren’t meals,and neither are reheated refrigerated or frozen entrées. Just offering dessert won’t cut it, either.
“In short, the primary focus of the licensed premises should be on meal service, with the service of alcoholic beverages only as a secondary service in support of that primary focus,” according to the state.
Inspectors tasked with determining whether a bar’s food service suffices generally consider “the various menu offerings, availability during typical meal hours, and whether the food offered is served in a reasonable quantity and what a reasonable person might consider to be a meal consumed at breakfast, lunch or dinner.”
This is from Mary Schley, “Bars strive to become restaurants in the social distancing era,” Carmel Pine Cone, September 18, 2020.
Bar owners are trying to figure out ways to survive and the state government is making it harder. The issue is not whether patrons socially distance. Those rules are enforced. It’s not about whether people are allowed to eat and drink indoors. In Monterey County, where I live, they aren’t. The issue is that the California state government wants to enforce its view of what constitutes a meal. It’s almost as if the government officials don’t care about bar owners and patrons.
READER COMMENTS
Phil H
Sep 20 2020 at 10:08pm
This is a bad argument.
Every rule bring absurdity in edge cases. Every single one. Pointing out that there is some absurdity in the edge cases (of what distinguishes a bar from a restaurant and how some establishments might try to game that distinction) means nothing.
If you disagree with the closing of bars, then the argument should be: It’s wrong to shut down bars. And you should back it up with relevant arguments, either about freedom to operate a business, or about relevant levels of harm. This kind of argument only serves to muddy the water.
Mark Z
Sep 20 2020 at 11:02pm
Can you explain why exactly this “absurd edge case” shouldn’t be remedied for precisely the reasons David mentions? Whether it’s an absurd edge case of an otherwise good rule or a bad rule in itself is completely irrelevant. It’s easy enough to amend the rules (which are made up by state and local executive branches, so it’s not like there’s some onerous legislative process they have to go through) so that bars don’t have to serve food. I really can’t fathom why it’s a matter of having to either support to whole edifice of rules, including the totally gratuitous absurdities of it, or oppose the whole edifice. That’s a completely nonsensical dichotomy. That just seems like a shoddy excuse for defending an indefensible policy, by insisting that it is somehow inextricably bound with some other more defensible policy.
James
Sep 21 2020 at 12:30am
Whoever made the rule created a situation with a built in potential for an edge case. The distinction between a bar and a restaurant is ambiguous and the people who made a rule allowing restaurants to serve patrons but not allowing bars to do the same could easily have anticipated the ambiguity. The consequences of such a poorly formed rule are just another valid line of argument against the policy.
Jon Murphy
Sep 21 2020 at 4:01am
Problem, Phil: This isn’t an “absurd edge case” of a rule. This is the rule; the rule is absurd.
AMT
Sep 21 2020 at 1:04am
David, do you think there is a difference in how people interact socially at a bar vs a restaurant? The government clearly does, which is clearly the reason for these rules. I can understand why, because it seems like there are pure restaurants, pure bars, and hybrids, and there are significant differences between them. E.g. at a bar I would say the average patron consumes more alcoholic beverages, consumes less food, and is a lot more likely to socially interact with individuals outside of their household. All of those things lead me to think those patrons are likely to practice less effective social distancing (whether due to intoxication and more risk taking, or because the goal is to interact with others), no matter what the rules on the books are. So I would disagree and say it truly is about social distancing, factoring in some reasonable assumptions about human nature.
PS. For an anecdote, a local bar advertised that they were able to open up, and that a mask is technically required for when you enter, but it is not necessary for you to be wearing it when inside…so I doubt actually cracking down on patrons violating the rules are going to be a priority for that establishment or other similar ones.
Jon Murphy
Sep 21 2020 at 4:02am
It’s not all that clear to me that is the government’s reasoning. Why the absurd restrictions on what constitutes a meal? Does my behavior change if I am eating fries versus a burger with fries?
AMT
Sep 21 2020 at 5:58am
They are simply trying to prevent bars from pretending to be a restaurant by offering a handful of food options that are easy to offer without actually becoming a restaurant. Probably because if they are just limited, poor food choices, nobody is really going to purchase them since they are purely to check off the regulatory box to try to fit into a different category. As I said, people generally go to restaurants to eat food, and may have alcohol as well, but the primary purpose of going to a bar is to drink alcohol, with possibly some food on the side.
Do you disagree with my view that people generally interact with others differently at each type of establishment? I don’t know how your behavior changes, but I’m pretty sure that most 21 year olds that are going out to socialize and drink act differently at restaurants and bars, especially the establishments that weren’t already offering restaurant-type food (e.g. clubs).
robc
Sep 21 2020 at 7:21am
There are less absurd ways to implement the rule. KY has, for years, distinguished by % of revenue from alcohol (in Louisville, the easier to obtain restaurant liquor license requires 50%+ food sales).
It can still lead to some questionable cases on the border, but was much less ridiculous.
Jon Murphy
Sep 21 2020 at 9:22am
Forgive me, AMT. My objection was unclear.
There are certainly differences in behavior between a sit-down meal and a bar. But if the behavioral differences were the main concern, why monkey about with meals and what constitutes meals? Why not just enforce the current rules in place which already address the behavioral issues?
AMT
Sep 21 2020 at 2:33pm
Answered in my first post. Rules will not be enforced because the bars would be essentially turning their customers away if they did.
robc
Sep 22 2020 at 7:39am
It is not the bar’s job to enforce the government’s rules.
You haven’t answered Jon’s question at all.
Jon Murphy
Sep 21 2020 at 4:07am
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the rule is more about alcohol prohibition than anything virus-related.
robc
Sep 21 2020 at 7:10am
Since when are chicken wings a side and not the main entree?
Back in a time when I was watching carbs carefully, I would eat them as the entire meal, no sides with them even.
Jon Murphy
Sep 21 2020 at 9:23am
Whoever decided wings are not a meal has never seen me go to town on a plate of hot wings 🙂
Thomas Hutcheson
Sep 21 2020 at 8:04am
It sounds like a consequence of regulating firms by class of establishment rather than by how they operate. Given this error, it is inevitable that firms seek to get re-classified.
Jon Murphy
Sep 21 2020 at 9:53am
Too bad there isn’t a vast empirical literature that could have predicted this.
Roger Levy
Sep 21 2020 at 4:52pm
Almost all of the comments fail to address the actual problem. If the objective of a rule from the government is to prevent or lessen the transmission of Covid then distinguishing between a bar, restaurant or any other service establishment is irrelevant. If social distancing is ok for liquor stores, supermarkets, Wallmart, banks, and riots then those same rules should be sufficient for bars and restaurants. For any government organization to make any attempt to rule on ‘What constitutes a meal’ is just outrageous.
David Seltzer
Sep 22 2020 at 5:55pm
“They can’t be pre-packaged sandwiches and salads, or appetizers and side dishes like fries and chicken wings.” What if the state board minions found themselves isolated and starving in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for three days with food supplies exhausted. I suspect the aforementioned gustatory delights would be “bona fide meals” for those starving bureaucrats. How long are we going to countenance this foolishness?
Comments are closed.