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Restaurants Can Now Serve Liquor with Carry Out Meals

photo of alcoholic drinks
JAG CZ
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SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
Beverages must stay in sealed containers during transit. They can be opened once at home.

Ohio restaurants have not been able to serve mixed drinks and straight liquors since the state order that closed dine-in services took effect last month. Now the state is changing its rules that will allow restaurants to serve those drinks along with take-out meals. 

Gov. Mike DeWine says the Ohio Liquor Control Commission passed an emergency rule allowing restaurants and carry outs with liquor licenses to sell alcoholic drinks to go with food orders.

“You will be able to get up to two drinks that will be pre-packaged. You cannot open them until you get home. But you can get up to two drinks per order.”

All of the usual taxes on those drinks will still apply. These new rules will apply as long as the state’s closure of restaurants due to the coronavirus continues. Restaurants requested this change. Liquor sales in stores set a record in the week after the state closed bars and in-restaurant dining last month.

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.