Sunday morning "drunch," or brunch with unlimited alcoholic drink refills, is illegal in New York City thanks to a little-known law that prohibits unlimited drinks for a set price or time that is now being enforced by the city's hospitality alliance.
A little-known New York State law prohibits “selling, serving, delivering or offering to patrons an unlimited number of drinks during any set period of time for a fixed price” according to the State Liquor Authority’s website.
But despite the law against unlimited drink specials, there is no shortage of NYC eateries aiming to draw patrons looking to tie one on before 3 p.m.
“We started getting a lot of calls from our member [restaurants] with questions about it, so it was abundantly clear to us that a lot of restaurants are not aware of the law,” said Robert Bookman, counsel to the NYC Hospitality Alliance.
The lack of restaurant owners’ knowledge of the law prompted the agency to send out an alert Monday to its member restaurants reminding them of the sometimes obscure law.
NYC residents were a quite dismayed by this revelation.
This is big government at work. There is no real reason why a restaurant shouldn't be allowed to set their own prices and drink specials for above-age customers to partake. It's not the government's job to dictate how many mimosas or cocktails a customer should be able to purchase or consume in a set period of time.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member