 A beer is poured at Night Shift Brewing on the Boston waterfront. |
WHEN MASSACHUSETTS banned happy hour at bars and restaurants in 1984, it made national news.
"The state's new regulation specifically prohibits offering free drinks, discounted drinks, or special 'jumbo' drinks that cost as much as regular drinks," The New York Times reported. "Unlimited numbers of drinks can no longer be offered for a fixed price, and bars are prohibited from sponsoring such promotions as darts or music contests that award alcoholic drinks as prizes." So stringent were the new restrictions, the Times noted, that even "a pitcher of beer can henceforth be sold only to a party of two or more customers."
Massachusetts was the first state to impose such a ban and to this day it remains one of only eight that flatly proscribe reduced-price drinks. The others are Alaska, Indiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah, and Vermont — but the Bay State outdoes them all in the inflexibility of its hostility to drink specials.
Like many ill-advised prohibitions, the plug was pulled on happy hour in the wake of a tragedy. In 1983 a group of friends met for drinks at a Ground Round in Braintree, where they won free pitchers of beer playing "Name that Tune." When they left the bar, 20-year-old Kathleen Barry climbed on top of a friend's Chevy sedan for a joyride around the mall parking lot. In a horrible accident, she fell from the car and was run over. The driver had consumed seven beers.
It was a ghastly death, and it triggered a moral panic. With the support of then-Governor Michael Dukakis, the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission convened hearings aimed at showing that alcohol-related accidents and deaths were out of control and that discounted drinking was a principal cause. On Nov. 21, 1984, the ABCC promulgated its prohibition making it unlawful for any bar or restaurant to sell drinks at bargain prices.
Like most emotion-induced crackdowns, the Massachusetts ban went both way too far and not nearly far enough.
No one denies that the vast majority of customers who enjoyed drinks when happy hour was legal were never involved in an alcohol-related accident and there was no reason to think they ever would be. People had a few drinks, saved a few bucks, and got home without mishap. But because of Massachusetts' draconian rules, responsible drinkers like them have been deprived for 40 years of the pleasure of a discounted pitcher of margaritas or an occasional glass of wine on the house.
At the same time, not even the Commonwealth's puritanical restriction can prevent some people from getting drunk (even if they have to pay full price to do so) or from drinking at private parties, open-bar receptions, or countless other settings not covered by state law.
According to David Jernigan, a professor at Boston University's School of Public Health, Massachusetts — with its enormous population of college students — is among the top 10 states for binge drinking. On the other hand, Massachusetts consistently ranks among the states with the lowest rate of drunken driving. On the other other hand, both the number and the rate of alcohol-related fatalities on the roads are much lower everywhere than they were in the 1980s — including in states where happy hour has never been prohibited. There are statistics to suit every argument.
The Massachusetts happy hour ban is unpopular — a MassINC poll in 2021 found that 70 percent of respondents supported rolling back the restriction. Every few years there is an effort to repeal it. Last week the Senate approved an amendment that would allow local governments to permit bars and restaurants to offer discounts on beverages. The legislation was proposed by Senator Julian Cyr, a Provincetown Democrat, on the grounds that it would enhance the hospitality industry and "help us have a little more fun in this state."
But the real problem with the state's heavy-handed suppression of happy hour is not that it is a buzzkill but that it is an unjustified and illogical infringement on economic liberty. Massachusetts has no more right to block bar owners from offering a reduction on the price of drinks than it does to block supermarkets from selling eggs at a bargain. Or to block The Boston Globe from charging just $1 for a six-month subscription.
All these are market choices that willing sellers and willing providers should be free to make for themselves. Massachusetts is not known as a bastion of economic liberty, but surely this is one nanny state overregulation it can let go of. For four decades the Commonwealth has waged its pointless war on happy hour. Enough is enough.
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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