So, a crazy liquor bill is nothing new in Utah, but sometimes…well I just have to wonder what goes through the mind of our legislators.

Take, for example, S.B. 187 as proposed by Senator John Valentine (R – Orem, District 14). This is the infamous “Zion Curtain” bill that Senate President Waddoups thinks is so vital to the protection of the children at those filthy little dives known as Chili’s and Applebees.

A zion curtain is a proposed ten foot high partition between alcohol storage behind a bar and the eating area of a restraunt. Patrions are not allowed to see the booze through the partition and, somehow, all this will prevent the children from getting a vodka tonic to wash down their chicken nuggets.

Yeah, I know…

What the bill also changes is the rules regarding the term intoxication – as it stands, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that it is not illegal to be intoxicated so long as you are not acting in a way that threatens yourself or others. Senator Valentine, in proposing this, is spitting in the eye of the Supreme Court by saying that it is illegal to be intoxicated if you “exhibit plain and easily observed outward mainifestations of behavior or physical signs produced by the over consumption of an alcoholic beverage.”

How vauge is that? If you pretend to be drunk in a play…BAM! Brekaing the law. If you have a mental disability…BAM! Breaking the law. If you are a kid on the playground immitating dad…BAM! Breaking the law. Now these are extreeme cases, of course, but the point stands – we can’t have this kind of vaugeness in the law.

We will see how this goes – there is less than two weeks left in the session, and so far this bill has only made it out of the Senate Business and Labor Committee – it has a long way to go and has pesky little things like budgetary bills that take higher priority.