Comment by hash872 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hash872 | Hacker News Reader

My public policy idea is that we should limit bars & restaurants to serving customers 3 drinks, and also have a mandatory cover charge to get in. I think it's rather strange that we that we have these licensed, socially acceptable centers right in the middle of a downtown commercial district where it's basically normal that people get blackout drunk and commit crimes every weekend, year in and year out. If people have a serious drinking problem, they're free to get drunk in the privacy of their own homes or a private party- just not at a licensed, regulated facility in public.

It might not work, I realize this! And yes yes I'm sure people have their Prohibition analogy ready to go. I just think it's worth trying, and also within the power of any individual town or city to experiment with (there are already dry towns and counties all over the US)

This is technically already a rule in most places in the US. It's not a "3 drink limit" but just that you are not allowed to serve alcohol to someone who is intoxicated and most people would be legally intoxicated after three drinks in a short(ish) amount of time. It's just very rarely enforced. I suspect the reason is mostly that probably 99% of bars would go out of business if they could only sell 3 drinks per customer per night. Alcohol, like many things that are fine(ish) in moderation but really bad in excess, as an industry is completely dependent on problem drinkers. They are a small minority of alcohol consumers but make up a hugely disproportionate share of total spending on alcohol.

i like to live in a free country. as an adult my mistakes are my business

Bars are usually in clusters, so all your rule would do is force people to walk 50 feet

Well a mandatory cover charge would probably be effective, the same way that higher taxes on alcohol have been proven to be effective. Towns could make bars share IDs on one server, you have to check to see if a customer has already been served earlier in the night

Do you imagine a real-time database that is only available to bartenders? This would have exciting implications.

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