This is the last of three travel articles that make up my summer columns. Straight Up is on the road for a summer excursion to Utah, where the missus was attending work-related seminars. I forged out to find out more about Salt Lake City, which is one of the most beautiful, clean, and active cities I have ever had the pleasure of visiting.

Utah’s most historical figure of past, Brigham Young, found himself harassed and harangued from New York to Missouri, and after years of misery, finally found a settlement in what was called then, The Great Salt Lake. In 1847, in the words of a wagon-traveler named Huston Horn, who was with Young and company, this area was “a barren wasteland,” which “only contained a single tree.” A spent traveler, she also commented: “Weak and weary as I am, I would rather go a thousand miles further than remain in such a desolate and forsaken place as this!” With this sweaty, hungry, and seemingly difficult-to-get-along-with-crowd of apathetic settlers, came strict rules from Mr. Young. A popular and successful colonizer and leader, Young’s religion was quite puritanical, and that lifestyle was expected of his followers. Some of those primitive regulations morphed into law, and many of them still stand today.

Utah is no place for the Rummy tourist to visit. As a whole, the state has either fabricated, or maintained, a tightly woven shroud of laws and regulations governing liquor and those who choose to drink it. No other state in the nation makes it so difficult to order a simple Tanqueray and tonic in an establishment that is set up to serve alcoholic beverages.

Over the years, writers have had been thrown what are essentially juicy steaks to castaways with the old “blue laws” that are still on the books in many states today. Man! We could write for days about how haw-haw-haw-funny those things are. “It’s unlawful for an unmarried woman to walk a monkey in public (Kentucky)” or “Laughing to imitate a donkey shall be considered unlawful (Commonwealth of Virginia).” The drinking laws in Utah are similar, but the real funny thing is, they are enforced.

To someone outside Utah, the entire bar structure is a laugh. Bars cannot sell booze unless they are a private club, which conjures up ideas of an exclusive place, where only the classiest of Rummys can drink. Right. The real deal is anyone can belong to the private club for a small fee, usually a couple bucks; or $20 for a year. Here’s the best part: as a member of the club, you can bring in about 20 guests a night, gratis.

Once a member of the “club” (bar) you are now allowed to drink in a public, errr, private place. However, there are other stipulations you must abide by. (You didn’t think you were just going to enjoy that Tanq & Tonic did you?) If you are drinking distilled spirits like bourbon, gin or vodka, you will never be poured more than one ounce for your drink. There are special, electronic, state-mandated pouring systems that ensure this. On top of this, you must order food to go with your beverage. Nobody likes a Rummy with a belly full of whiskey and no sustenance—and for good reason—it’s just too dangerous.

Hardcore Rummys know that the best buzz for the buck is the one that you have on an empty stomach, though. No way is a real Rummy going to interrupt the chemical process of alcohol absorption with a freaking cheeseburger! It’s uncouth! Which explains why the bar owners, profiteers themselves, are always looking out for the Rummy’s best interest, and in Utah, they’ve figured out a way to beat that silly system that says that Rummys need to be fed.

Old, rickety, popcorn carts are dragged in from the Park-N-Swap, leftover no doubt from County Fairs gone by, and set up as a food source. Popped corn is sold at a quarter a bag. One can only imagine the frustration to the purist lawmakers when this little loophole was found. A court hearing might have gone like this, as a blue-suited conservative prosecutor attacked a Hawaiian shirt-wearing bar owner in the Circuit Court:

PROSECUTOR (pointing fingers, red-faced): The Nation of Utah clearly defines rules in the devil spirit, er, drinking establishments. Food must be served when liquor is poured!

DEFENSE (yawning, red-faced, but for another reason): Popcorn. Is. Food. Defense rests.

On top of it all, true Rummys who appreciate beer and the advances that have been made with this concoction since the Egyptians fiddled with it 3000 years ago, will be disappointed to discover that “3.2” beer is all you’re going to get in Utah’s bars. Even a bottle of one of America’s finest beers, Samuel Adams, has been specially modified to fit the law, which requires beer to maintain an alcohol content no greater than 3.2 per cent. This is an abomination and an outrage to beer fans, and should be on the outlaw list, right up there next to murder and cloning. Rummys might argue that 3.2 beer is for children.

Purists will argue that the world would be a better place without alcohol. Most domestic violence cases involve alcohol, and drunken driving kills thousands of people every year. Alcohol-related illnesses account for many thousands more. It’s a tough debate for the Rummy to argue, and no Rummy can support the atrocity of drunken driving.

But a world without alcohol is a world without character; a machine without lubrication; a pirate ship without cannons. It’s a loss of great writers like Hemingway, H.S. Thompson, Vonnegut, and Shakespeare. It’s a loss of our favorite sports like football and baseball (can you go to a game with your Dad without having a hotdog and even a small beer?). It’s a loss of Rock-n-Roll beyond the Beatles, and an open invitation for the Russkies to do damage to us in late 60s via Cuba. (Tell me Kennedy didn’t knock back a drink during that time – go on, tell me.)

I guess Utah’s old liquor laws are trying to help people see that they have to be responsible when it comes to drinking. In the late years of colonization of the West, I can understand the desire to keep citizens from getting completely inebriated. I’m sure drunkards were probably stumbling off into the desert in the dark, only to be found the next morning, face-hatcheted by the local savages. That’s enough to make anyone put down the whiskey and holler for water.

However, is it necessary for me, Joe Consumer, to be forced to order popcorn just because I want a single gin and tonic? I think not, and that’s why, the next time that this consumer is booking a summer vacation, I’ll be looking more to the hedonistic treats available throughout the west, in states other than Utah.