Posted 10/19/2004 05:08:00 PM by Douglas

South Carolina, the meteor in the war of Northern aggression, has now confronted an issue equally as pressing as state's rights. The Mini-bottle.

South Carolina voters will decide Nov. 2 whether to maintain another of the state's modern peculiarities: the tiny bottles of liquor used in restaurants and bars.

South Carolina is the only state in the country that doesn't allow bartenders to pour drinks from regular-sized bottles of liquor. Instead, for every drink, they have to open 1.7-ounce bottles of booze like the ones served on airplanes.

Supporters of the constitutional amendment allowing free-pour liquor say minibottle-only drinks need to go the way of South Carolina institutions such as the Confederate flag that once flew over the Statehouse dome and video gambling machines, now banned from the state.

That would mean drinks will become cheaper and roads will become safer because cocktails and shots won't be so potent, they say.

But opponents argue switching to free-pour drinks will allow unscrupulous bartenders to water down drinks, reduce tax revenues and could open the state's liquor laws to yearly changes at the whim of lawmakers.

I can't imagine who would be in favor of running a bar with airline liquor, but I guess it would take the guess work out of bartending. I just hope they can resolve this without a shot being fired in anger.