Jack Thompson - the disbarred Florida attorney and anti-videogame activist who wrote a draconian "truth in advertising" bill that Gov. Jon Huntsman vetoed last month - isn't giving up yet.

GamePolitics reports that Thompson did two hours on the conservative Utah Eagle Forum's radio show on K-Talk, bashing Huntsman and tossing out some tired accusations tying a school shooting in Germany and the Columbine massacre to videogame violence.

Thompson was introduced as "an attorney from Florida." Nowhere, as both GamePolitics and the blog Joystiq point out, was it mentioned that Thompson is actually an ex-attorney. Truth in advertising only goes so far with the Eagle Forum, apparently.

Labels: politics, Utah Legislature, videogames

It's official - Gov. Jon Huntsman signed the massive revision of Utah's liquor laws on Monday, in a ceremony at the New Yorker restaurant/bar that was notable for a lack of alcohol being served.

As of July 1 - just three months and a day from now - Utah will be not quite so weird when it comes to getting a drink. The byzantine "private club" rules will be abolished (except for clubs that want to keep them), the "Zion Curtain" that separates restaurants from the liquor will come down (although, in the law's idiotic two-steps-forward, one-step-back fashion, new restaurants will have the alcohol preparation will be moved to a hidden room), and anyone who looks under 35 will have their driver's license electronically scanned before entering a bar.

So start the countdown: 92 days until we have (comparative) freedom to drink in Utah!

Labels: alcohol, alcohol laws, Jon Huntsman, Utah Legislature

"Color me surprised," says the writer of GamePolitics.com. "I did not think that Huntsman would buck the legislature on this one."

"This one" is HB353, a bill that was intended to punish businesses who sold M-rated videogames to youngsters - but, because of its vague wording, could have applied to theaters playing R-rated movies, bookstores and all manner of media.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman vetoed HB353 on Wednesday. In a statement notifying the legislature of the veto, Huntsman wrote: "While protecting children from inappropriate materials is a laudable goal, the language of this bill is so broad that it likely will be struck down by the courts as unconstitutional."

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Michael Morley, R-Spanish Fork, blamed the veto on an e-mail lobbying campaign by "a lot of gamers that misrepresent the bill."

But it wasn't just gamers - who have followed the legislation closely (here, here and here, for example) - who thought the bill was stupid. The Salt Lake Tribune's editorial writers today called the vetoed bill "a bullet dodged" that would have had the unintended consequence of forcing stores to throw out industry ratings systems - making it harder for parents to filter out age-inappropriate games, DVDs and movies.

A tip to Rep. Morley and other legislators: Next time, don't let a disbarred Florida lawyer write your bill for you.

Labels: Jon Huntsman, Utah Legislature, videogames

So how did Utah's cultural landscape fare after the Utah Legislature finished its work Thursday night?

The big news is that the massive rewrite of the state's liquor laws - which eliminates the "private club" regulations and lets existing restaurants take down the "Zion Curtain" - passed both houses and is heading to Gov. Jon Huntsman's desk. In spite of the more annoying parts of the bill (like requiring a separate area for drink-mixing in new restaurants), the overall effect helps drag Utah's liquor laws into the 21st century.

On the other hand, a bill that would have allowed bars and restaurants to sell draft beer that exceeds the notorious 3.2 percent alcohol level was left hanging in the Utah Senate.

Video-game sellers may have to be more careful to ID their customers. A bill - written by disbarred Florida lawyer and anti-video-game crusader Jack Thompson - headed to Huntsman's desk would increase the fines for retailers who sell M-rated video games to minors.

And Hollywood productions will have more reason to come to Utah. The Legislature is kicking up the state's motion picture incentive to 20 percent (for up to $500,000).

Labels: alcohol, alcohol laws, movies, Utah Legislature, videogames

Oh, mercy. Now some bright bulb in the Utah Legislature - Rep. Craig Frank, R-American Fork, to be specific - wants to tax caffeine.

As someone who ditched caffeine several years ago for health reasons, I don't really have a dog in this fight. But as someone who used to nurse a six-pack-a-day Diet Coke habit, I reserve the right to declare this a monumentally stupid and discriminatory idea.

The problem - besides the hypocrisy of all "vice" taxes, like tobacco and alcohol, that the state becomes addicted to the revenue while officials publicly decry the product - is that it is yet another example of the predominantly Mormon membership of the legislature is forcing its religious views on the rest of us.

And the fact that the Legislature refuses to raise the cigarette tax, while cutting the budget for anti-smoking education, just highlights the hypocrisy at work.

Labels: LDS, politics, Utah Legislature

Rachel Maddow, on her MSNBC show Tuesday, took a swing at an impossible task: Explaining Utah's liquor laws to the nation.

She ran through some of the stranger aspects of Utah's alcohol policy over the years - private clubs, mini-bottles, etc. - before describing Monday's announcement that the Utah Legislature is doing away with the private club law, but adding a few other wrinkles.

Maddow enlisted the aid of Rocky Anderson, Salt Lake City's former mayor, to go over the new bill. Anderson praised Gov. Jon Huntsman's efforts to bring Utah's liquor laws into the 20th century (almost into the 21st century), but also remarked on how a big step forward - like eliminating the private clubs - doesn't come without a small step backward.

Maddow talked about that step backward - how new restaurants will have to mix drinks in a separate room, away from patrons' view - by quoting (blush) my Culture Vulture column. Here's the whole clip:

Labels: alcohol, alcohol laws, Jon Huntsman, Rocky Anderson, Utah Legislature

The Utah Legislature is saying goodbye to Utah's ridiculous "private club" law.

Gov. Jon Huntsman and leaders of the Utah Legislature today announced they have hammered out a major revision to the state's oddball liquor laws. The two biggest changes: An end to the fig-leaf that only "private clubs" could sell hard liquor, and that restaurants can remove the glass partition - the so-called "Zion Curtain" - that hides the booze from the bar patrons. (Here's the bill in full.)

"This bill tears down the walls," declared Sen. John L. Valentine, R-Provo, who has been in the lead on liquor issues in this year's legislative session.

But where one wall falls, another is going up. New restaurants will be required to build in a separate room for alcohol preparation, unseen by the patrons. Existing restaurants don't have to remodel their bars, but if they do they can get $30,000 in credit at the state liquor store.

In exchange for the loosening of restrictions on the soon-to-be-former "private clubs," legislators got tougher DUI laws - including a law that would, if you are arrested on a second DUI with a suspended license, make you forfeit your car.

These tougher DUI regulations were championed by Rep. Christopher Herrod, R-Provo, who compared it to the European approach to stopping drunk driving.

"In Europe, they have the culture that they drink heavily, but they do not drive," said Herrod (pictured). "That's the culture I want to bring to Utah."

Herrod's words brought a chuckle to the assembled legislators, lobbyists and journalists at today's press conference. Herrod blushed a bit, smiled sheepishly and explained that he wants Utah to adopt the European attitude toward drunk drivers, not drinking in general.

Labels: alcohol, alcohol laws, politics, Utah Legislature

The Utah House passed, on a vote of 70-2, a bill that would allow people to sue retailers for false advertising if they sell age-inappropriate videogames to underage customers - if they advertise policies to prevent such sales.

The gaming world is watching the bill closely (the blog GamePolitics.com live-blogged the House floor debate), in part because of its potential chilling effect on videogame sellers - but also becausse the bill was written by an old nemesis, anti-videogame crusader and disbarred Florida lawyer Jack Thompson.

Labels: politics, Utah Legislature, videogames

Utah State Sen. John Valentine (pictured), R-Orem, has thrown a new anti-alcohol bill into the mix, aimed at protecting our precious youth from the dastardly sight of a restaurant worker mixing a cocktail.

The bill, SB187, would make it illegal for a restaurant to prepare a drink where patrons could see it - and mandates 10-foot walls to block the view.

Valentine's bill also widely expands the definition of legal intoxication, to include "easily observed outward manifestations of behavior or physical signs produced by the over-consumption of an alcoholic beverage." It's a definition so broad and vague that even acting a little quirky or exuberant could be interpreted as drunkenness.

Meanwhile, as the Tribune's Dawn House reports, the legislature is planning to cut funding for a successful ad campaign aimed at curbing teen drinking.

Inspired by Sen. Valentine, I offer this proposal: The state should erect a 10-foot wall in the Utah House and Senate galleries, so children won't be exposed to erratic behavior. Also, people could receive citations to people who exhibit "easily observed outward manifestations of behavior or physical signs produced by legislating or the over-consumption of self-righteous rhetoric."

Labels: alcohol laws, Utah Legislature

The Utah Legislature delights in teasing us, holding out hope that some progressive bit of legislation might make it through to becoming a law - only to pull it away, like Lucy Van Pelt's football just before Charlie Brown is about to kick it.

So the news Monday that the House Business and Labor Committee voted 8-5 to approve HB347, which would put an end to Utah's idiotic system of "private clubs" selling hard liquor, should be met with a bit of hope and a whole lot of skepticism.

For one thing, the anti-alcohol crusaders aren't going to stop fighting - and their allies could easily block the bill on the House floor or in the Senate. For another, the idea that club memberships would be replaced by electronic scanners that read your driver's licence (and then store the information for a week) borders on the Orwellian.

The move has the backing of Gov. Jon Huntsman, who on his recent trip to D.C. became quite the media star - appearing on MSNBC to talk about his fellow Republicans' resistance to President Barack Obama's stimulus plan, dissing GOP congressional leaders to both The Washington Times and Politico. (Between these remarks and his recent endorsement of civil unions for gay couples, Huntsman soon may become more popular outside the Utah Republican Party than in it.)

Apparently being a reasonable-sounding Republican is sort of like a talking dog - so unusual it's newsworthy.

Labels: alcohol, alcohol laws, Jon Huntsman, politics, Utah Legislature

Apparently because there's not enough to do in the Massachusetts Legislature, State Rep. William Brownsberger has introduced a bill that would make "Fever Pitch" - the 2005 romance and Red Sox comedy starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon - the official movie of the commonwealth.

Aside from questioning Rep. Brownsberger's taste in movies (c'mon, why not "The Departed" or "Mystic River" or "Good Will Hunting"?), this story got me thinking: What would be Utah's official movie?

• Would it be a movie about Utah history, like "Brigham Young, Frontiersman"?
• Would it be a movie about Mormon history, like "The Work and the Glory"?
• Would it be a movie filmed in Utah, like "High School Musical" or "Thelma and Louise"?
• Or would it be a movie made by a Utah filmmaker, like Trent Harris' "Rubin & Ed"?

Come on, Utah, what would you pick? Nominate your favorites in the comments.

Labels: movies, Utah Legislature

Congratulations, Utah! Once again, the world is judging the entire state by the actions of one obnoxiously bigoted member of your legislature.

State Sen. Chris Buttars' recent interview with documentarian Reed Cowan has made the rounds of the blogosphere, and the response has been rather harsh.

Some examples:

• Commentator Andrew Sullivan, on his blog for The Atlantic, nominated Buttars for a "Malkin Award," named for right-wing bloviator Michelle Malkin.
• The liberal blog Think Progress printed large portions of the transcript, hanging Buttars with his own words.
• The blog Pam's House Blend, which tracks gay and lesbian issues, called Buttars and the Utah Legislature (which whacked the last of the Common Ground Initiative bills Wednesday) "pathetic."
• Ed Brayton, radio host and keeper of the "Dispatches from the Culture Wars" blog, declared that Buttars has regained his status as "looniest state legislator in the country."
• Meanwhile, blogger Eric Ethington puts the lie to Buttars' claim that Cowan promised to let Buttars review the footage from the interview - by publishing the release form Buttars signed.

Of course, as a commenter to the Vulture blog pointed out, Buttars is a citizen and therefore free to express himself any way he wants. But if he's going to dish out hateful insults, he can't cry and complain when epithets are hurled back at him.

Labels: politics, Utah Legislature

Just when it looked like Utah State Sen. Chris Buttars was warming up to gay activists - who even brought him pumpkin bread - the outspoken conservative swats away all such pretense of civility.

In an interview with documentary filmmaker (and former Salt Lake TV news reporter) Reed Cowan, Buttars - he's the one on the left (next to his cartoon lookalike, the Burgermeister Meisterburger) - called the gay-rights movement "probably the greatest threat to America." (Clips from the interview aired Tuesday night on KTVX, Ch. 4. Here's an account by the Tribune's Rosemary Winters.)

"It's the beginning of the end," Buttars said. "Oh, it's worse than that. Sure. Sodom and Gomorrah was localized. This is worldwide."

That's right, gays - who have to ask the Utah Legislature for permission not to be discriminated against (permission the legislature once again denied) - are "the greatest threat to America." Not Osama bin Laden, the falling economy or even the heartbreak of psoriasis.

"He basically labeled my community as virtually the devil incarnate," said gay-rights activist Jacob Whipple, who called for Buttars' resignation. "I don't think that he represents Utah any more. … Saying something so hurtful has no place on the hill."

Labels: politics, Utah Legislature