If by happy valley you mean Utah county (Provo area) in specific, it's about the same. If you mean the whole state, it has changed a bit. Still can't get anything above 3.2 in grocery stores and have to go to the state liquor stores. The private clubs are gone. For a while some were getting around it by selling memberships at the door, so it was like a cover charge, but in the sunup to the Olympics, people got concerned that all the rules would give the state a bad name. There are still some odd laws, like 3.2 beer (which is 4% ABV). The oddest one is probably the so-called Zion curtain. I don't know if it applies to all bars or only those in restaurants, but a bartender has to be behind a wall of sorts when mixing a drink.mashani wrote:No coffee was to be found in happy valley. Last call was at the airport. If you were desperate for caffeine you could get mountain dew however. For some reason modern priestly elders decided it wasn't the fact that coffee had caffeine in it that made it bad, but that it was some combination of being hot, dark colored, and having caffeine that made it evil. But cold yellow pee colored caffeine loaded with sugar was OK. So mountain dew became the coders beverage of choice.Jon wrote:NO COFFEE!? I don't think I could do my job without coffee!
There was a TGI Fridays in happy valley. It had a bar, because it was built to specification. The bar was never open. It was not stocked with beverages. Nobody there to serve you. So 1/3rd of the floor space was just dark and empty.
You could get them to serve you 1 beer with your dinner if you really worked at it. They would act like you were the devil incarnate, but you could get 1 beer. I guess TGI Fridays forced them to stock something for tourists. It would be a 3% version of whatever commercial beer it was. If you asked for a second one they turned red and looked as if they were going to explode and would flat out refuse to serve you any longer. So it was actually easier just to not ask.
To get anything stronger then 3% beer you had to go to a private club. Which you had to find a sponsor to get into. And none of the folks I worked with would have stuck a pinky into such a place. They were run by the devils minions.
Happy valley might be happier these days, I dunno? Been a while.
The coffee thing comes from one of the religious books. I think it actually says something like no hot stimulating drinks, so it technically only applies to coffee and tea. Some people also avoid hot cocoa, but I don't think it's actually forbidden. Same with Coca Cola, Mountain Dew, etc. Some Mormons won't drink anything with caffeine in it because they think the ban really applies to caffeine, but a couple of years ago, the church leaders put something out clarifying that soft drinks were ok (but some people still won't drink them).
Interestingly, it was Utah's vote that ratified the repeal of prohibition. And I've read that in the early days of the Mormon church, beer was considered healthful and people were encourage to drink it in moderation, but I'm not sure of that. Just something I read somewhere.
