I’ll Take The Wine To Go

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As I wrap up 2008, here at A Connecticut Law Blog, it’s time for a look back on the year that was.

Here’s a post that you may be able to put to good use during the holiday season:

Have you ever ordered a bottle of wine in a restaurant, enjoyed it, but did not finish it with your meal?

Wine

In Connecticut, you can ask your server to put more than just your meal in your “doggie bag.”  By statute a restaurant patron is allowed to remove one unsealed bottle of wine for off-premises consumption so long as the patron has purchased the wine with a full course meal and has consumed part of the meal.

 

Here is the statute, complete with the definition of a full course meal (you’ll see that chex mix in a bar does not count):

A restaurant patron shall be allowed to remove one unsealed bottle of wine for off-premises consumption provided the patron has purchased such bottle of wine at such restaurant and has purchased a full course meal at such restaurant and consumed a portion of the bottle of wine with such meal on such restaurant premises. For the purposes of this section, “full course meal” means a diversified selection of food which ordinarily cannot be consumed without the use of tableware and which cannot be conveniently consumed while standing or walking. Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 30-22

Cheers!