Saturday, March 22, 2008

Roll out the barrel in NS

It's hard to believe, but until now it was actually illegal for a bar in Nova Scotia to serve drinks on Good Friday or on Christmas unless they also sold food -- and the food was more expensive than the drinks. This patently silly regulation went out the window this week allowing the beer to flow for the first time in decades.

Yes, I do wonder about the wisdom of drinking during the High Holy Days of the Catholic and Protestant calendars (the Thursday to Saturday before Easter). But come on -- like Christmas and Easter themselves, Good Friday is marked by civil authorities as a strictly secular holiday. If people want to drink, let them -- just make sure enforcement for DUI is stepped up.

And it's not like a lot of states in the South, where grocery stores can't sell beer until noon on Sundays and many restaurants can't even serve alcohol with meals (unless you buy a trial membership, informally called "dinner by the wink").

For the record, the Christian scriptures don't forbid drinking -- it forbids getting or being drunk. There is a difference.

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