State of Emergency Ends – Should “To-Go” Cocktails Stay?

462 days later, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ COVID-19 state of emergency ended at 12:01 am today. The end to the state of emergency will reverse some measures that were put into place to help stave off the coronavirus pandemic. The decision to lift the emergency declaration on June 15th was announced in early March. 

The end to the state of emergency means several things. Gov. Charlie Baker’s order allowing remote public meetings is now expired. Also now gone will be some health care options and extra eviction protections for tenants in the state.  

The emergency measures were all helpful in one way or another to different groups of people, but there is one that I will most definitely miss – and that is the measure allowing restaurants to sell alcoholic beverages to go. I’m not a heavy drinker by any stretch of the imagination, but when the weekend comes, I like to loosen up a little. The wife and I will usually yank the cork out a bottle of wine or two... or three. However, on occasion, we like to take it up a notch and enjoy a cocktail or two. And sometimes, picking them up at an area restaurant when we get takeout food, is very convenient. 

I certainly think that an argument can be made to keep making “to-go" cocktails available at restaurants around the state that would like to offer them. I don’t recall hearing anything negative that has come from their availability. As long as servers are checking IDs to make sure that purchasers are of the legal drinking age, and restaurants continue to serve the drinks in the sealed cups that they have been using, I see no reason why the practice can’t continue. Of course, that is only my opinion, but I’ll bet that a lot of you agree. 

In any case, it sure is good to be getting things back to normalcy again. Well, at least as close to normalcy as possible. Things probably won’t ever really be the same as they were before.