What's Going on With BYOB Policies in Atlanta?

BYOB service at Atlanta restaurants may be endangered. Or maybe not. Creative Loafing's Brad Kaplan has the story on the Georgia Restaurant Association advising members of "renewed enforcement of the long dormant Bottle House license requirement" and Mayor Kasim Reed's fervent denials of any such shift in policy.

The heart of the matter: whether or not restaurant patrons will still be allowed to dine with their own bottles from home. A decades-old city ordinance requires establishments to hold a "Bottle House licence" and pay an annual $2,000 fee for allowing BYOB service. However, that rule has not been enforced, and Reed says it won't be anytime soon. If it were, many restaurants would likely cease the service. As Kaplan notes, Fifth Group and Concentrics restaurant groups have stopped their BYOB services following the warning from GRA.

"We stopped the service as we were recently advised by our attorney that the city is enforcing the Bottle House ordinance, so we are abiding by those rules," Todd Rushing, a partner at Concentrics, said in an email to Eater. "We will continue to do so until we hear otherwise from an authoritative source." Got something to add? Leave a comment or visit the tipline.
—Chris Fuhrmeister
· Two Sides to the Atlanta BYOB Story [CL]
· All BYOB Coverage [-EATL-]