Utah Legislature Watch

Just as you think there might be a slim chance of making Utah liquor laws more reasonable, you wake up in the morning and read this (SLTrib.com):

A proposal to scan the driver licenses of bar patrons and keep it on file in a state law enforcement database is a good start, says Senate President Michael Waddoups, but he wants to see the program go further.

Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, says he wants to see the database idea start with private clubs, but extend to restaurants that serve diners beer and liquor.

That would greatly expand the scope of the data collection and create a new requirement for restaurants, which are not required to have people sign up as members in order to serve beer and liquor. There are fewer than 400 clubs and taverns and nearly 1,100 restaurants licensed to serve alcohol.

So Senator Waddoups wants a record maintained of people who are doing a perfectly legal activity? And why? Get ready to spit your coffee:

“In a restaurant, if they’re serving alcohol, the person ordering the alcohol should show the ID,” said Waddoups, who was receiving a demonstration of the license scanners after the Legislature’s budget meeting Friday. “At some point, the restaurant would feed [the information] into the central database.”

That way, he said, if the restaurant patron left the restaurant and went to a bar, the bartender could know the customer may have already been drinking and might need to be watched more closely.

Okay, I go back to my original belief that they need to administer IQ tests before people can serve in elected office.

Not only is this new idea extremely burdensome to businesses, it certainly would be found to violate individual rights of privacy. Let’s see now, what other legal activities can we keep track of people doing?

Cross-posted at OneUtah

Filed under: Liquor Laws, Utah Legislature Tagged: | database, Liquor Laws, Michael Waddoups, Utah Senate