A tale of (drinking in) two cities
The photo above is a sign at the entrance of a brewpub's car park in Missoula, Montana. It vividly and visually portrays the huge difference between Portland and Missoula when it comes to drinking alcohol.
The sale, distribution and consumption of alcoholic beverages in Portland (and all of Oregon) is controlled by the OLCC (Oregon Liquor Control Commission), who rule with something of an iron fist. Venues are regularly tested to see if they are checking the ID of patrons or letting underage drinkers in; so much so that most bars will ask everyone for ID, even if they're way above 21. And once they've asked you for ID, no one will turn a blind eye if you've forgotten it. No card, no drink.
Whereas, as this picture shows, Missoula almost seems proud of its hard drinking reputation. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Top Hat Club has a "$5 Tap Beer" promotion on Wednesday nights. What this means is that for $5, you get as many pints as you can drink between 10:30pm and 1:00am! Guidelines for bar owners in Montana suggest that encouraging binge drinking isn't such a great idea, but it doesn't seem like that message has quite sunk in yet for some bars. Missoula is a university town, so I would expect that a large proportion of the drinkers who would want to take advantage of a $5 beer night would be college kids. Spencer (who grew up in Montana) told me that bars would do "Quarter Beers" - 25 cent pints!!! and "cheap drinks until the first person goes to the toilet" nights.
As a final demonstration of the differences between the two cities, Spencer's sister - who is 23 - forgot her ID when she came to the Top Hat, but was allowed entry anyway. It just wouldn't happen in Portland.
Posted in: chaosboy, party time, travel, united states on April 16, 2008 at at 11:25:00 AM
