This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I am outraged at the good ol' boys and girls club on Utah's Capitol Hill for giving restaurants $30,000 to hide their bottles of spirits ("Effort to cloak liquor has eateries scrambling," Tribune, June 12). This is absolute insanity.
As I take my 4-, 9- or 17-year-olds out for a nice meal at a restaurant that indeed does serve liquor, I find absolutely no need to "hide" my children's tender eyes from booze in a bottle. If my 4-year-old asks, "Dad, what are those?" it's truly a moment when a parent can educate their kids on the realities of the world.
My response would be simple, direct and hopefully beneficial: "Honey, there are people who come here who like different things in life. Those are beverages that some adults choose to purchase with their food." That response didn't cost me or our state a dime, and my child hopefully now understands that as a diverse and educated culture, some of us enjoy different aspects of life.
To build a wall is to invoke a paraphrase of the saying that the good ol' boy of all good ol' boys once said: Mr. Utah Conservative, tear down this wall.
Roger W. Knox
Holladay