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Bar owners push to change antiquated alcohol laws, which they say invade privacy

Bar owners are pushing North Carolina lawmakers to update some of the country's most antiquated alcohol laws - many of which they say are unfair and invade people's privacy.

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By
Laura Leslie
, WRAL capitol bureau chief

Bar owners are pushing North Carolina lawmakers to update some of the country's most antiquated alcohol laws—many of which they say are unfair and invade people's privacy.

North Carolina has some of the strictest alcohol laws in the country. Currently, happy hour drink specials are not legal in the state. Plus, if you want to go to a bar that doesn't serve food, state law says you have to hand over your personal information to get a drink. Bar owners say it’s time to change these laws.

Jay Ruth, vice president of the North Carolina Bar Owners Association, says requiring customers to give their name, address and phone number just to buy a drink at a bar is a gross invasion of privacy.

Even though there's nothing exclusive about the two neighborhood bars he owns in Wilmington, state law says he must require his customers to become "members" to drink there—because they serve liquor and not food.

"We have to charge [members] at least $1 a year," he says. "And then we have to also keep the roster, which also includes an alphabetical roster, in addition to the actual membership forms that the people fill out."

Ruth says bars are now among the only organizations in the state where you have to give your personal information to enjoy their wares.

Those who buy an alcoholic drink at a restaurant don't have to share personal information.

The bar owners association is pushing to get rid of the membership law. It also wants the state to legalize happy hours. North Carolina is one of just a handful of states where happy hour drink specials are illegal.

Bar owners are hoping to get some changes made as early as this summer session. Lawmakers, however, say they may not take up that issue till 2023.

Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, has been working on modernizing the state’s antiquated alcohol laws for years. Some of them go back to Prohibition's end in the 1930s. He says they make North Carolina look backwards.

"We're more of the outlier here," he says. "Folks come into the state like, 'What's that all about?'"

"We're a southern state, going into the Bible Belt," Saine said. And those traditions have been been there for a long, long time and have been slow to go away."

Saine thinks that's beginning to change. Ruth hopes he's right.

"I'm not sure we're going to be able to get everything that we absolutely hope to get," Ruth said. "But I think we can get some things done. And that's what we plan to do."

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