What Do You Think: Should All-You-Can-Drink Be Illegal?


Last week, our friends over at Meal Ticket announced that Arrow Swim Club’s Chenango, officially the least stupidly named of the most stupidly named restaurants in Philadelphia (no, really, we took a poll), was offering all-you-can-drink brunch on Saturdays and Sundays. Pay $20 and you get a brunch entree plus as many mimosas or Bloody Marys as you can drink until you are hospitalized, fall down drunk, try to make out with the hostess at PYT, puke in Nicole Cashman’s swimming pool or otherwise make a total ass out of yourself you are, as the law stipulates, “visibly intoxicated”. It’s a move that reeks of desperation to fill the seats, and it also seems to be illegal.

According to Chapter 13, Subchapter C of the Liquor Code, licensees are prohibited from “the sale or serving, or both, of an unlimited or indefinite amount of liquor, wine, or malt or brewed beverages for a set price.” You probably remember the all-you-can-drink Bloody Mary bar at Lucy’s Hat Shop. Nowadays, the folks at Lucy’s are running a $20 open bar on Friday and Saturday nights, but they require that you reserve and pay at least 24 hours in advance, thereby exploiting a loophole in the law that was intended to allow for open bars at catered events.

On one hand, the law kinda makes sense in that it cuts down on the number of drunken d-bags roaming the streets (or, worse, driving on them), especially since I’m pretty sure that the type of people hanging out at Lucy’s and Arrow don’t get any better once they’re inebriated. On the other hand, we here at Foobooz are generally against anything that restricts the consumption of alcohol. So we want you to weigh in.

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