Drink it up: Bipartisan bill would legalize happy hour in North Carolina

It’s 5 o’clock somewhere, but in North Carolina that doesn’t mean much for after-work drink specials. Happy hours remain illegal — at least for now.

On Monday, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers filed a bill that would allow individual cities and counties to legalize limited-time drink specials and promotions.

“The restaurant and bar owners certainly want it,” said Republican Rep. Jason Saine, the bill’s lead sponsor. “With North Carolina growing like we have … you end up with people from many different places who are just used to having happy hour. It’s just part of the culture.”

A similar bill was filed last year but didn't pass.

For the Republican-controlled legislature, any bills that loosen restrictions on alcohol sales can be tricky to navigate politically. The GOP’s supporters in the business community tend to want such rules, but many religious activists oppose them.

Those who support the state’s current, relatively strict alcohol rules say they help public safety by discouraging drinking. But supporters of looser restrictions say they’re just trying to bring the state’s alcohol laws out of the Prohibition era, and into the 21st Century.

“We’ve gone in the last two decades from what I’d call the ‘Hell No’ caucus, where they wouldn’t go for anything, to now, we can actually have conversations about it,” Saine said.

In the past few years, some changes to booze rules have happened at the state and local levels. Liquor stores are still state-run, to the dismay of free-market advocates in both parties. But other small changes have passed, like a new law several years ago that allowed alcohol sales before noon on Sundays at grocery stores and for restaurants’ Sunday brunches.

The “brunch bill,” as it was called at the time, passed to the surprise of many. Key to winning support in the GOP was that it used the same formulation Saine’s new happy hour bill also uses: It wouldn’t force the changes statewide, and instead allowed individual cities and counties to vote on making the change for themselves.

That allows conservative rural areas to keep stricter alcohol rules if local leaders want, while allowing bigger cities to pass the new rules.