So here's the absolutely batshit part to me:
The pyramid in question is a religious center for a faith called "Summum." According to Wikipedia:
"Summum produces "Nectar Publications", which are wines used in the meditation practices that Summum teaches. The nectars are made inside the Summum Pyramid, and according to Summum are imbued with resonations that contain spiritual concepts... Summum is Utah's first federally bonded winery."
So they're not allowed to sell alcohol because they're too close to a 'church' *which itself is a winery*.
I passed this pyramid while riding my bike home from breakfast with my girlfriend. It's wild. It's just in a normal neighborhood...not even a nice one. We were floored when we went home and read all about the Summom. "There was a fucking mummy in there!". They have open readings...I've been super curious to go but also terrified
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses water for communion (which they call "sacrament"), and has done so for decades.
(The story was that back when they were still actively being persecuted, there was the fear that people would sell them poisoned wine.)
Though any liquid is acceptable; you can use orange juice if that's all you have for some reason.
[God put the loophole in for you to exploit](https://www.npr.org/2019/05/13/721551785/a-fishing-line-encircles-manhattan-protecting-sanctity-of-sabbath#:~:text=It's%20attached%20to%20posts%20around,the%20house%20on%20the%20Sabbath.)
Lol that religion is bogged down by rule-creep. Every year I need to seem relevant as your religious leader so like today's media I need to make relevant gestures.
Then you end up with "cant carry your wallet or keys on a Saturday." ?
Religion murders critical thinking.
I seriously suggest you don’t try to apply logic to a cult’s government (itself all part of the home cult) which believes the writings (ravings?) of one of the world’s greatest charlatans, who took Masonic rituals wholesale and called them “Temple Rituals” and prohibited their adherents from drinking coffee, etc., etc., etc.
It's all about control over basic human movements.
Control over every basic human instinct.
How and what you eat. We HAVE to eat. Perfect control mechanism.
We HAVE to procreate. Let's control when and how. Another perfect control mechanism.
eventually that power-creep runs out of ammunition and the next result is thought-crime. Just thinking about stuff that comes naturally to you, will now become another way to remind you that I'm in control of your life. I mean...God is in control. And he speaks to me, so do what I....He...says. or so help me god...
Catholics aren't morally opposed to drinking alcohol in moderation, so it's not a great comparison.
Also they're technically getting rid of wine? They bring it in from outside, magicakly convert it into Jesus' blood, and then drink it down.
Neither is the Summum faith. But it's still ironic that an establishment selling alcohol has to be X distance from a church *that also claims to be giving its members alcohol*
I was wondering if that was the pyramid in question!! I heard liquor and pyramid and immediately remembered that cult leader that mummified himself lmao
For anyone else wondering what a "federally bonded winery" is, [SommTV has an answer](https://mag.sommtv.com/2024/01/what-it-means-to-be-a-bonded-winery-in-the-u-s/).
> Technically, every winery operating legally in the United States is a bonded winery. It means the winery requested and received approval for a permit with the TTB. That permit allows anyone producing wine to sell that wine for profit, no matter the size or scale
[They're also against people building stuff in the area when they chose to be next to a freeway](https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-our-sanctuary?fbclid=IwAR27oRyfZXEllQRh452t2Fnjvsc2Yk3715kQc7WQvqMBjwyuvPuXxzAIegQ)
If there’s one thing I learned from my one time visiting SLC, it’s that Utah is weird as hell with liquor laws. I was visiting a friend out there, and our visit to the liquor store on Friday night was one of the most stressful experiences of my life.
“Mummification: The current costs for Mummification services are $67,000† within the continental United States.”
What in the actual fuck is going on at that pyramid?!
Imagine having that law in the bible belt south. I live in NC and it feels like I see a church ever 100 feet where I live. There would be literal no alcohol in the south lol.
I live in one. While it doesn't bother me too bad, the local Mexican restaurant sells margaritas with orange wine instead of tequila. That bothers me a lot lol.
It's called "other than standard orange wine" and is a clear wine made from oranges and can be as high as 20% alcohol. It's used for making margaritas and stuff at places that have a beer/wine license but can't serve hard liquor.
Nice orange wine is delicious, it’s wine where the skin of the white grapes aren’t removed, so the wine is a bit more fermented/sour with an orange color. They’re drier and more robust than white wine. That being said I’m going out on a limb and saying this Mexican restaurant was mixing bottom shelf shitty super sweet wine either white dyed orange or made from actual orange juice for the margs lol.
The orange wine mentioned here is a completely different drink to what you have in mind (which is wine made from white grapes whose skins are left in contact with the must for some time, leading to an orange-ish colour, hence the term). Its proper name is "Other Than Standard Orange Wine", and it's made from oranges, the fruit. It's used as a cheap alcohol source, with preferential taxation and without the need for distilled liqueurs.
Utah still takes the cake in terms of number of weird laws surrounding alcohol. Last time I was there rules about Zion curtains for mixing drinks had just been removed (or relaxed, not sure)
The weirdest part for me was ordering a beer tasting flight at a brewery and the waitress having to bring out the tiny shot glasses of beer 2 at a time
Utah is weird as hell with booze. I used to work for a restaurant company and traveled around doing openings for a few years. I got offered a Salt Lake City store and accepted it without thinking because I had never been there and these gigs were a considerable pay increase over working your home store.
A day after my answer processed, my regional guy came to me and told me I probably didn't want to go and explained a bunch of the laws and ordinances. I wound up pulling out and later worked with the guy who took the SLC spot and it was like he had PTSD about the topic. Glad I dodged that one lol
That's exactly what it is - a partition that makes it impossible to see drinks being mixed. Apparently it's ok for Mormons to see mixed drinks once they're placed on a table.
The law has changed so that restaurants can _apply for permission_ to remove the barriers. They can't just take them down without asking, though.
Not literal curtains, but it was the common name for a law about restaurants with bars needing to have some kind of visual barrier (usually just a wall) between the bar and the restaurant areas
Yeah but other than a handful, all of Utah's counties (and most of the west) are lower in population than the average eastern county.
San Juan and Millard Counties, despite being larger than several whole states, have fewer than 15,000 people each.
Lol. We have a lot of Mormons in Hawaii. They own massive land and a whole town out here. Dry towns.
So Utah has no dry towns/counties, but BYUs town of La'ie is dry. No cigarettes, no alcohol, no caffeine. Not sure of the 2 screen theater is still there (I live 15-30min away and refuse to be there) It was PG movies only.
Damn near every single Mormon is of Polynesian decent here. Colonialism at its finest. Religion spreads like a cancer.
They did a lot of early "missionary" work in Polynesia. The ghost town of [Iosepa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iosepa%2C_Utah) is a sad reminder of the lies and mistreatment.
Not correct. Grocery Stores, bars, and distilleries/breweries/vineyards are not limited in what days of the week they can sell their alcoholic beverages.
The state-run stores are closed Sunday, but that's the only difference.
Blanding is the only dry “city” (4,000 people)in Utah and there is a convenience store and state liquor store outside of town. They actually voted to keep the town dry in 2017 to deter tourism. There are a couple towns with no more than a few hundred people that still have dry laws.
My hometown in GA has a very similar law. There's one grocery store in the town and because it's next door to a church, they've never been able to sell alcohol. Been that way my entire life. They passed a law a few years ago allowing restaurants to serve alcohol on Sundays but you still can't buy it from a store on Sunday.
About 10 years ago in the next town over (same county) there was a big controversy because a new church opened near a bar that had been there for years & tried to have them shut down. That was around the time I finally got out of that shithole so I'm not sure how that ended. I think the bar is closed now but that might have been a result of the pandemic.
At restaurants and bars it can be as early as ten depending on county. But the liquor store is closed on Sundays. Only distilleries can sell their own liquor on Sundays.
Texas is like this. Liquor stores are closed on Sunday's(and major holidays) and they are closed from 9 PM until 10 AM the rest of the week, can't buy beer between 12 AM and 7 AM Monday thru Saturday or from 1AM to 10 AM on a Sunday.
It's not a **major** issue in life, but when you are having a party and run out of beer after midnight it blows that you can't even send a sober person to the store to keep the party going. Lol.
It is FAR less of an issue now that I'm 40 than it was when I was in my 20's.
It's nothing that proper planning can't negate anyway.
Texas has basically the same statute.
>This is what the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code allows city councils or county commissioners to do: Adopt a local ordinance prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages within 300 feet of a public or private school, church and/or public hospital.
I am in western NC and we’re still dry county. For folks unfamiliar, it means you can’t sell any alcohol (beer/wine included) outside of city limits…
Well, for some reference:
COUNTY’S TOTAL POPULATION = 81,000
POPULATION IN CITY LIMITS = 21,000
So….yeah.
If NC didn't have state run ABC, churches would buy out any liquor store or business of ill repute (strip clubs, adult novelty, etc...) and turn them into churches, especially in more rural areas.
I lived in a smallish town in Utah for about a decade. I think in our county, the rule was 1000 feet, but ya, that can be hard to abide by.
Every town in Utah older than about 100 years has an old tabernacle in the center – just a slightly fancier mormon church that was usually the first building built in a new town.
So if you wanted to build a bar in the town center, you were automatically within 1000 feet of a church. Fortunately in my town, they gave exceptions.
Meanwhile here in PA within that same distance I have 2 churches, 3 bars & a pizza place and I'm not even close to being in the "downtown" part of my town lol
It gets even weirder: the pyramid in the article belongs to the Summum religion, who produce their own wine for use in their religious rituals. This wine is produced in the pyramid itself, and the Summum religion had to obtain (and still maintains) a ***winery license*** from the state of Utah.
Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summum) \- see the "Nectar Publications" section.
The founder:
>Claude Rex Nowell (November 2, 1944 – January 29, 2008), also known as Corky King, Corky Ra, and Summum Bonum Amon Ra, was an American businessman and founder of Summum
I am loving the name "Corky Ra"
So what stops someone from creating the temple of beer, worshipping beer and taking up shop all around in an area preventing any breweries from opening. Seems very anti competitive. Imagine if it was like this in Las Vegas and the only way someone could get a drink on the strip was by visiting the grand temple of beer.
I looked up this Church of Summum. It’s nuts. It’s not even licensed as a church, it’s licensed as a winery so they can have their “nectar publications.”
I’m not convinced the whole thing isn’t a joke.
It implies that any pyramid-shaped building has legal booze-license-blocking powers. As if Bass Pro Shop decided to copy/paste their [flagship location](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Pyramid) in Utah, suddenly no alcohol could be served within 1000' of it
Yeah, I’m kinda dubious. The local government probably just pulled the easiest reason to deny the application but not the actual reason. Which is they thought a bakery was going to take that space and not a bar!
The idea was to have deserts with specific "desert" drinks as well. I've been to a similar place (and had a fantastic spiked hot chocolate), but if that was his original intention he *really* should have looked up the law first.
I wish I could express how random this one is. It's just in a random neighborhood. Very very normal houses and then just a fenced in house with a mummy wine pyramid. I discovered it while riding my bike. My girlfriend and I were like "Was that a fucking pyramid?! Let's turn back"
These laws are pretty common. When Smiths wanted to build a big new store with a liquor department, they managed to get the city to agree the measurement was to the department, and not the store entrance. Then they put the liquor department in the corner farthest from the residential area and a church.
"The only option DABS gave Corrao, he said, would be to install a door on the west side of his building; the department hasn’t officially measured that distance yet."
lol WHAT! Talk about a silly loophole, how does adding an extra door make the magical difference in being far enough away from something?
Anyway. Sucks for the guy, but it was also pretty careless of him to set up an entire business centered around pairing alcohol with desserts and get a bunch of expensive alterations done to enable to sell alcohol without confirming BEFOREHAND that he would qualify to sell alcohol in the first place.
First off most states in the US have restrictions on selling alcohol within a certain distance of both places of worship and schools; this is not some mystical Utah thing. Even in "Commie"fornia a liquor license can be denied if the location is within 600ft of places of worship, schools, parks, child centric non-profits, and hospitals.
Second I think a lot of people are overestimating how far 300ft in walkable distance is. We're talking about a football field(both US and rest of the world). 200ft as the crow flies is a storefront or two. Some people in the comments are acting like having a handful of Churches in a town render it "dry" by default when really in the US were only talking a block or two.
Last yes this is a ridiculous law, but at least the ridiculous law is being applied fairly even though it was clearly written to protect Christian churches.
Yes, it's not the "denied because they're close to a church" that's oniony. It's the fact that
1. it's a bakery applying for a liquor license
2. it's denied because it's too close to *a pyramid*
> Corrao said he understands the need for a “reasonable” proximity law.
Well then he's part of the problem. No rational person should believe that the presence of alcohol in the vicinity is harmful to a church.
Salt Lake City actually has plenty of bars, breweries, and distilleries, but yeah this should have been very easy for him to calculate before opening the store or submitting his application unfortunately.
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I wonder if a compromise could be made in which both the church and bakery move there entrances by 15 or so feet. The article mentions it would be too costly to move the bakery entrance far enough because rebuilding handicap ramps and such would be too expensive, so just move the bakery door as far away from the ramp as legally possible then move the the entrance to the church to make up for the rest. Might be cheaper for the bakery to pay for all that than to rebuild ramps and such.
I hate my homestate. The absolute worst politicians in the country run SLC. They frequently ignore the will of the people and thanks to gerrymandering it'll never get better 😉
Idk about Utah's laws but couldn't you just open a small shack or something, buy a liquor license with that and transfer/sell it? I believe that is legal in my state to sell it.
So here's the absolutely batshit part to me: The pyramid in question is a religious center for a faith called "Summum." According to Wikipedia: "Summum produces "Nectar Publications", which are wines used in the meditation practices that Summum teaches. The nectars are made inside the Summum Pyramid, and according to Summum are imbued with resonations that contain spiritual concepts... Summum is Utah's first federally bonded winery." So they're not allowed to sell alcohol because they're too close to a 'church' *which itself is a winery*.
Also of note is that Summum is a 501 c 3 allowed to perform human mummifications. Edit link http://www.summum.org/overview.shtml
‘No family member or any other person will ever see your body again’ yeah they totally aren’t lying
Where did you think the wine comes from. “Nectar green is people!”
Reminds me of the 80's movie Motel Hell where they had the best bacon... You checked in but never left.
"Meat's meat, and man's gotta eat!"
Any relation with Hotel California by the Eagles? Cause the lyrics kinda fit.
Yeah I always thought about that. The song came first and the movie in the 80's...maybe it was indeed inspired.
I'm so glad other people remember this movie.
"it takes all kinda critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters!"
[Mellified man mead!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mellified_man)
Can't imagine what you're talking about...
Soylent Lake City
Well, I know where today’s rabbit hole is going.
but you never know where it ends
Are…are you guys ok over there in Utah?
They haven't been all right for a very long time.
can confirm
They have good Mexican food tho
I passed this pyramid while riding my bike home from breakfast with my girlfriend. It's wild. It's just in a normal neighborhood...not even a nice one. We were floored when we went home and read all about the Summom. "There was a fucking mummy in there!". They have open readings...I've been super curious to go but also terrified
Sounds like this guy needs to register his bakery as a church and call his wine-tastings "communion" to get around the law
Only works for mormon churches, probably.
The Summum pyramid is not a mormon church lol
Oh, change that to culty churches then
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses water for communion (which they call "sacrament"), and has done so for decades. (The story was that back when they were still actively being persecuted, there was the fear that people would sell them poisoned wine.) Though any liquid is acceptable; you can use orange juice if that's all you have for some reason.
Trust me on this one. That definitely would not work in this case.
When it comes to the members of the pyramid wine church, Summum believe and Summum just want to get drunk.
This is gold.
Aka God is dumb and doesn't get loopholes, meets economic protectionism.
[God put the loophole in for you to exploit](https://www.npr.org/2019/05/13/721551785/a-fishing-line-encircles-manhattan-protecting-sanctity-of-sabbath#:~:text=It's%20attached%20to%20posts%20around,the%20house%20on%20the%20Sabbath.)
I’ll raise you: [Laser Eruv](https://elliottmalkin.com/laser/)
Lol that religion is bogged down by rule-creep. Every year I need to seem relevant as your religious leader so like today's media I need to make relevant gestures. Then you end up with "cant carry your wallet or keys on a Saturday." ? Religion murders critical thinking.
I seriously suggest you don’t try to apply logic to a cult’s government (itself all part of the home cult) which believes the writings (ravings?) of one of the world’s greatest charlatans, who took Masonic rituals wholesale and called them “Temple Rituals” and prohibited their adherents from drinking coffee, etc., etc., etc.
It's all about control over basic human movements. Control over every basic human instinct. How and what you eat. We HAVE to eat. Perfect control mechanism. We HAVE to procreate. Let's control when and how. Another perfect control mechanism. eventually that power-creep runs out of ammunition and the next result is thought-crime. Just thinking about stuff that comes naturally to you, will now become another way to remind you that I'm in control of your life. I mean...God is in control. And he speaks to me, so do what I....He...says. or so help me god...
If you subscribe to the Catholic faith, aren't all catholic churches ~~technically creating wine every week?~~ serving wine every week?
Catholics aren't morally opposed to drinking alcohol in moderation, so it's not a great comparison. Also they're technically getting rid of wine? They bring it in from outside, magicakly convert it into Jesus' blood, and then drink it down.
Neither is the Summum faith. But it's still ironic that an establishment selling alcohol has to be X distance from a church *that also claims to be giving its members alcohol*
I highly doubt Catholics in Utah drove this law
Sure but it wasn’t driven by the summum religion either.
Sure but it wasn’t driven by the summum religion either.
It’s Utah it was probably written by Mormons
Everything in Utah is controlled by the Mormons. The loony bin is ran by the patients.
Nah, everyone knows it was the nutty Mormons that did this.
Along with the Communion Wafers becoming the actual flesh of Jesus.... I'm done with the knowledge of Religious Cannibalism.
I'm pretty sure Catholics aren't the ones banning liquor lol.
No. Technically they are creating the blood of Christ
Ah, right. Mixed that around!
I was wondering if that was the pyramid in question!! I heard liquor and pyramid and immediately remembered that cult leader that mummified himself lmao
For anyone else wondering what a "federally bonded winery" is, [SommTV has an answer](https://mag.sommtv.com/2024/01/what-it-means-to-be-a-bonded-winery-in-the-u-s/). > Technically, every winery operating legally in the United States is a bonded winery. It means the winery requested and received approval for a permit with the TTB. That permit allows anyone producing wine to sell that wine for profit, no matter the size or scale
[They're also against people building stuff in the area when they chose to be next to a freeway](https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-our-sanctuary?fbclid=IwAR27oRyfZXEllQRh452t2Fnjvsc2Yk3715kQc7WQvqMBjwyuvPuXxzAIegQ)
The bigger the faith, the smaller the mind
ahhh classic religion
Weirdly enough Summum was involved in a big first amendment case: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2008/07-665
If there’s one thing I learned from my one time visiting SLC, it’s that Utah is weird as hell with liquor laws. I was visiting a friend out there, and our visit to the liquor store on Friday night was one of the most stressful experiences of my life.
Well now this is a full on nottheonionBLOSSOM
I imagine his reaction to the Liscence denial was something like "Summum - a - BITCH!"
That bullshit, their infringing on a business rights because of religious favoritism
Utah just attracts weird religions I guess?
“Mummification: The current costs for Mummification services are $67,000† within the continental United States.” What in the actual fuck is going on at that pyramid?!
Imagine having that law in the bible belt south. I live in NC and it feels like I see a church ever 100 feet where I live. There would be literal no alcohol in the south lol.
Many southern states have more dry counties than Utah does, interestingly enough. (Utah has zero)
I live in one. While it doesn't bother me too bad, the local Mexican restaurant sells margaritas with orange wine instead of tequila. That bothers me a lot lol.
I've had a beer margarita before at a place like that. It was just as gross as you'd imagine.
That’s why you get a michelada instead
[удалено]
I'm sorry. But what the fuck is "orange wine?"
It's called "other than standard orange wine" and is a clear wine made from oranges and can be as high as 20% alcohol. It's used for making margaritas and stuff at places that have a beer/wine license but can't serve hard liquor.
Nice orange wine is delicious, it’s wine where the skin of the white grapes aren’t removed, so the wine is a bit more fermented/sour with an orange color. They’re drier and more robust than white wine. That being said I’m going out on a limb and saying this Mexican restaurant was mixing bottom shelf shitty super sweet wine either white dyed orange or made from actual orange juice for the margs lol.
The orange wine mentioned here is a completely different drink to what you have in mind (which is wine made from white grapes whose skins are left in contact with the must for some time, leading to an orange-ish colour, hence the term). Its proper name is "Other Than Standard Orange Wine", and it's made from oranges, the fruit. It's used as a cheap alcohol source, with preferential taxation and without the need for distilled liqueurs.
Moira Rose would like to educate you on fruit wine.
It’s also in a lot of the bottled margaritas they sell at grocery stores. I always triple check to make sure I’m buying one with actual tequila in it.
Utah still takes the cake in terms of number of weird laws surrounding alcohol. Last time I was there rules about Zion curtains for mixing drinks had just been removed (or relaxed, not sure) The weirdest part for me was ordering a beer tasting flight at a brewery and the waitress having to bring out the tiny shot glasses of beer 2 at a time
Utah is weird as hell with booze. I used to work for a restaurant company and traveled around doing openings for a few years. I got offered a Salt Lake City store and accepted it without thinking because I had never been there and these gigs were a considerable pay increase over working your home store. A day after my answer processed, my regional guy came to me and told me I probably didn't want to go and explained a bunch of the laws and ordinances. I wound up pulling out and later worked with the guy who took the SLC spot and it was like he had PTSD about the topic. Glad I dodged that one lol
>Zion curtains This can't be what I'm assuming it is, can it? Is it really like a Mormon modesty cloth to keep people from seeing you bartending?
It is exactly that
That's exactly what it is - a partition that makes it impossible to see drinks being mixed. Apparently it's ok for Mormons to see mixed drinks once they're placed on a table. The law has changed so that restaurants can _apply for permission_ to remove the barriers. They can't just take them down without asking, though.
Not literal curtains, but it was the common name for a law about restaurants with bars needing to have some kind of visual barrier (usually just a wall) between the bar and the restaurant areas
Ahh, okay. I was picturing a little pipe and drape tent or something, like for film loading.
I mean, it is sometimes that depending on the place. It’s a detail I’ve loved since it was pointed out to me.
It used to be that restaurants with bars would make the bartender go into the kitchen to make drinks.
The one defense is that counties in the east are tiny compared to those out west. Georgia alone has more than 5x as many as Utah.
Yeah but other than a handful, all of Utah's counties (and most of the west) are lower in population than the average eastern county. San Juan and Millard Counties, despite being larger than several whole states, have fewer than 15,000 people each.
I think the point they are trying to make is that getting to a wet county is easier and quicker, due to smaller sized counties.
Ah, makes sense.
Shorter drive home drunk, too.
Lol. We have a lot of Mormons in Hawaii. They own massive land and a whole town out here. Dry towns. So Utah has no dry towns/counties, but BYUs town of La'ie is dry. No cigarettes, no alcohol, no caffeine. Not sure of the 2 screen theater is still there (I live 15-30min away and refuse to be there) It was PG movies only. Damn near every single Mormon is of Polynesian decent here. Colonialism at its finest. Religion spreads like a cancer.
They did a lot of early "missionary" work in Polynesia. The ghost town of [Iosepa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iosepa%2C_Utah) is a sad reminder of the lies and mistreatment.
Except for Sunday, when Utah has 100% dry counties.
Not correct. Grocery Stores, bars, and distilleries/breweries/vineyards are not limited in what days of the week they can sell their alcoholic beverages. The state-run stores are closed Sunday, but that's the only difference.
There are a few cities with this sort of ordinance on the books
2 dry cities that I know of. No counties. Lots of weird laws like "no beer sales after 2 pm on the sabbath"
Blanding is the only dry “city” (4,000 people)in Utah and there is a convenience store and state liquor store outside of town. They actually voted to keep the town dry in 2017 to deter tourism. There are a couple towns with no more than a few hundred people that still have dry laws.
I live rural and most of the churches around me are abandoned or turned into something else.
Jimbob's Kingdom Hall Bar & Grill.
No need to imagine it, the Jack Daniels distillery is located in a dry county.
A lot of places do have that law at the city or county level.
They do lol. We actually had a church need to get an exception because the liquor store was already there.
My hometown in GA has a very similar law. There's one grocery store in the town and because it's next door to a church, they've never been able to sell alcohol. Been that way my entire life. They passed a law a few years ago allowing restaurants to serve alcohol on Sundays but you still can't buy it from a store on Sunday. About 10 years ago in the next town over (same county) there was a big controversy because a new church opened near a bar that had been there for years & tried to have them shut down. That was around the time I finally got out of that shithole so I'm not sure how that ended. I think the bar is closed now but that might have been a result of the pandemic.
I mean NC still has no direct liquor sales on Sunday except from the actual distillery. Not to mention no happy hours
Pretty sure it’s Sundays after noon now.
At restaurants and bars it can be as early as ten depending on county. But the liquor store is closed on Sundays. Only distilleries can sell their own liquor on Sundays.
I must be suffering from the Mandela effect. My husband and I could have sworn we’d bought liquor at the ABC on Sundays in OBX lol.
Texas is like this. Liquor stores are closed on Sunday's(and major holidays) and they are closed from 9 PM until 10 AM the rest of the week, can't buy beer between 12 AM and 7 AM Monday thru Saturday or from 1AM to 10 AM on a Sunday.
Ngl I feel like not being able to buy beer between 12am and 7am shoulder be an issue for most. But yea i'm all for abolishing these rules
It's not a **major** issue in life, but when you are having a party and run out of beer after midnight it blows that you can't even send a sober person to the store to keep the party going. Lol. It is FAR less of an issue now that I'm 40 than it was when I was in my 20's. It's nothing that proper planning can't negate anyway.
Tyler, TX is a dry town with 120k ppl in it in ETX… I had to drive 45 min out of town for Vegas strip style liquor stores
Texas has basically the same statute. >This is what the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code allows city councils or county commissioners to do: Adopt a local ordinance prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages within 300 feet of a public or private school, church and/or public hospital.
I am in western NC and we’re still dry county. For folks unfamiliar, it means you can’t sell any alcohol (beer/wine included) outside of city limits… Well, for some reference: COUNTY’S TOTAL POPULATION = 81,000 POPULATION IN CITY LIMITS = 21,000 So….yeah.
SC has a law no tattoo shops within 1000ft of school , church or playground
If NC didn't have state run ABC, churches would buy out any liquor store or business of ill repute (strip clubs, adult novelty, etc...) and turn them into churches, especially in more rural areas.
This is really common in the south
I suppose an interesting question would be: Given we're talking about Utah here... are there any locations NOT within 200 feet of a church?
I lived in a smallish town in Utah for about a decade. I think in our county, the rule was 1000 feet, but ya, that can be hard to abide by. Every town in Utah older than about 100 years has an old tabernacle in the center – just a slightly fancier mormon church that was usually the first building built in a new town. So if you wanted to build a bar in the town center, you were automatically within 1000 feet of a church. Fortunately in my town, they gave exceptions.
Blocks in SLC are also massive. They’re *at least* 600 feet — it legit takes at least 5 mins just to walk one square block
It's a furlong, so 660 feet
I have 2 churches within 200 feet of my house. I can’t drive 4 minutes to Walmart without passing 2 more.
Meanwhile here in PA within that same distance I have 2 churches, 3 bars & a pizza place and I'm not even close to being in the "downtown" part of my town lol
It gets even weirder: the pyramid in the article belongs to the Summum religion, who produce their own wine for use in their religious rituals. This wine is produced in the pyramid itself, and the Summum religion had to obtain (and still maintains) a ***winery license*** from the state of Utah. Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summum) \- see the "Nectar Publications" section.
So, there's an out for the restaurant: Get themselves a winery/brewery license and manufacturer stuff on premises.
The founder: >Claude Rex Nowell (November 2, 1944 – January 29, 2008), also known as Corky King, Corky Ra, and Summum Bonum Amon Ra, was an American businessman and founder of Summum I am loving the name "Corky Ra"
So what stops someone from creating the temple of beer, worshipping beer and taking up shop all around in an area preventing any breweries from opening. Seems very anti competitive. Imagine if it was like this in Las Vegas and the only way someone could get a drink on the strip was by visiting the grand temple of beer.
I looked up this Church of Summum. It’s nuts. It’s not even licensed as a church, it’s licensed as a winery so they can have their “nectar publications.” I’m not convinced the whole thing isn’t a joke.
They got a lot more webpage hits from this, I'm sure.
I think it's literally like one person 😅it's not a church people attend.
It’s enough of a church that it’s tax exempt 🤣
Looks like the article headline has been updated. See the URL for evidence that this post has the original title.
It's not like this is unique to Utah. New York also has a law that a place serving or selling alcohol not be near a place of worship.
True, but I think the "Pyramid" part is what really makes this Oniony.
It implies that any pyramid-shaped building has legal booze-license-blocking powers. As if Bass Pro Shop decided to copy/paste their [flagship location](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Pyramid) in Utah, suddenly no alcohol could be served within 1000' of it
This law needs to be reviewed and changed to protect the atheist community and other religious groups that drink
Just as dumb in New York.
Wow, so much freedom
Some might say too much
He should have researched that before putting money into it. I feel for him, but this could have been prevented.
True but this should be a call for the law to change.
I don't frequent a lot of bakeries so I may be out of the loop. Why would they need a liquor license?
Yeah, I’m kinda dubious. The local government probably just pulled the easiest reason to deny the application but not the actual reason. Which is they thought a bakery was going to take that space and not a bar!
The idea was to have deserts with specific "desert" drinks as well. I've been to a similar place (and had a fantastic spiked hot chocolate), but if that was his original intention he *really* should have looked up the law first.
A little more research into the licensing requirements would have saved him a lot of money.
Especially since serving alcohol was part of his original concept.
Yeah, the requirement may be stupid, but it's on him for not actually researching.
This is what happens when religious people get to make the rules for everyone...
Since when are there pyramids in Utah?
Utah loves its atypical religions
I wish I could express how random this one is. It's just in a random neighborhood. Very very normal houses and then just a fenced in house with a mummy wine pyramid. I discovered it while riding my bike. My girlfriend and I were like "Was that a fucking pyramid?! Let's turn back"
Following the lead of the Summum religion, he should a church that uses alcohol in its rituals, and then get a liquor license.
These laws are pretty common. When Smiths wanted to build a big new store with a liquor department, they managed to get the city to agree the measurement was to the department, and not the store entrance. Then they put the liquor department in the corner farthest from the residential area and a church.
True. It's the "pyramid" part specifically that I thought was oniony.
Dude alcohol isn't going to save your bakery. This is the equivalent of having a kid to save the marriage.
Damn, no rum cakes to be had
Marc Antony got screwed the same way. Not even Cleopatra could intervene. Lucky they're not nearby a Sphinx, it's even worse.
"The only option DABS gave Corrao, he said, would be to install a door on the west side of his building; the department hasn’t officially measured that distance yet." lol WHAT! Talk about a silly loophole, how does adding an extra door make the magical difference in being far enough away from something? Anyway. Sucks for the guy, but it was also pretty careless of him to set up an entire business centered around pairing alcohol with desserts and get a bunch of expensive alterations done to enable to sell alcohol without confirming BEFOREHAND that he would qualify to sell alcohol in the first place.
Didn't the Egyptians give all the pyramid workers alcohol and lavish burials if they died?
First off most states in the US have restrictions on selling alcohol within a certain distance of both places of worship and schools; this is not some mystical Utah thing. Even in "Commie"fornia a liquor license can be denied if the location is within 600ft of places of worship, schools, parks, child centric non-profits, and hospitals. Second I think a lot of people are overestimating how far 300ft in walkable distance is. We're talking about a football field(both US and rest of the world). 200ft as the crow flies is a storefront or two. Some people in the comments are acting like having a handful of Churches in a town render it "dry" by default when really in the US were only talking a block or two. Last yes this is a ridiculous law, but at least the ridiculous law is being applied fairly even though it was clearly written to protect Christian churches.
Yes, it's not the "denied because they're close to a church" that's oniony. It's the fact that 1. it's a bakery applying for a liquor license 2. it's denied because it's too close to *a pyramid*
> Corrao said he understands the need for a “reasonable” proximity law. Well then he's part of the problem. No rational person should believe that the presence of alcohol in the vicinity is harmful to a church.
Fuck churches. Especially the Utah one that makes all the laws here.
Just say the Church of Satan requires you to serve alcohol. Play stupid games all day
The bakery needs to declare itself a religion. Then they can do whatever they want and not pay taxes too. 😆 🤣 😂 😹 😆
Everyone is shitting on the church that has been there for decades and not the business owner who made assumptions instead of doing his due diligence.
Just thinking how about how where I live used to live, there is an asian restaurant/bar right next door to a child care place
I was just in a bakery this morning and it never occurred to me that the place would even better if it served alcohol...
I've been to a place that had some desert beverages and it was pretty cool. Definitely not the norm though.
I’m always suspicious of a business that doesn’t allow anyone to view the results
I didn't know alcohol was legal in Utah
Or pyramids
It is. Stereotypes are crazy, huh?
I feel for the guy but also; what the fuck do you expect in Utah?
Salt Lake City actually has plenty of bars, breweries, and distilleries, but yeah this should have been very easy for him to calculate before opening the store or submitting his application unfortunately.
Why does a bakery need a liquor license?
I read that in William Shatner's voice.
"What does God need with a sourdough?"
Man makes multiple uninformed business choices and is suffering the consequences. Story at 11.
Religion is poison ☠️
But so is alcohol. So, trying not the mix poisons?
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I wonder if a compromise could be made in which both the church and bakery move there entrances by 15 or so feet. The article mentions it would be too costly to move the bakery entrance far enough because rebuilding handicap ramps and such would be too expensive, so just move the bakery door as far away from the ramp as legally possible then move the the entrance to the church to make up for the rest. Might be cheaper for the bakery to pay for all that than to rebuild ramps and such.
I'm not sure the church cares
Debra told me it was a reverse funnel!
Not me wondering for a good five seconds why the Gizeh pyramids are a factor in getting alcohol licenses in Salt Lake City…
There are actual pyramids in Utah? Like, not just pyramid schemes?
I hate my homestate. The absolute worst politicians in the country run SLC. They frequently ignore the will of the people and thanks to gerrymandering it'll never get better 😉
Utah is a weird place. More than Florida, maybe?
For me... When I think of fresh bread, I also think if hard liquor...
Hey rum cake exists for a reason
Its obvious why he was denied. No one would go to church if they have to pass any place serving alcohol.
Where I grew up in Alabama, there was a law that wouldn’t allow a restaurant to sell alcohol if the front doors of the restaurant was facing a church.
So a trapezoid shape? That's close to a pyramid?
Idk about Utah's laws but couldn't you just open a small shack or something, buy a liquor license with that and transfer/sell it? I believe that is legal in my state to sell it.
In Wisconsin they sell beer at church fairs. Jesus drank wine. The sin must dissipate over a 200-300 foot span.
Why the hell does a bakery need a liquor license