| Updated: April 14, 2021, 3:56 a.m.
In the early days of the pandemic, Mark Alston, the owner of The Bayou, purchased $3,000 worth of equipment that would allow his Salt Lake City bar to bottle and sell draft beer to go.
Sales of the sealed containers were brisk, he said, until last week when bars and restaurants across the state received a letter from the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control saying sales of “beer to go” would no longer be allowed — except in a few instances.
The DABC is taking away “an important lifeline” for bars and restaurants, Alston told The Tribune. “At a time when to-go sales are mission-critical, it’s like cutting off one leg of a three-legged stool.”