It's a silly amendment when you think about it. Who would want to take their drink into a nightclub washroom? Well, it turns out, young women might - to prevent their drink from being spiked by a date-rape drug while they are answering the call of nature. This is not to suggest that date-rape drugs are running rampant in Toronto. In fact, they rarely make the news, though they are possibly an under-reported phenomenon. But that is the excuse the government made for changing what is hopefully the last of the truly arcane liquor laws in the province of Ontario, a hangover from its puritanical past. Once the law is enacted, club- and restaurant-goers will be able to take their glass of chardonnay or designer beer into the bathroom, or hallway. Imagine, being able to walk around totally freely in a Toronto club with a drink in your hand! That will be a first. When I moved here as a young man some years ago, having grown up in Montreal, I was struck by how different Canada's two largest cities were. One big difference revolved around booze. Montreal was very much a European-style city when it came to alcohol. We threw a huge party during Expo 67, and it seemed as if the whole world came to drink and dance in our streets. In Montreal, adolescents were often encouraged to have a glass of wine or beer at the dinner table. As for nightclubs, the rule of thumb was: if you were big enough to reach over the counter, that was enough to be served. Toronto was different. If you wanted to buy alcohol in Toronto, you had to go to a liquor store, write your order on a piece of paper and give it to a man behind the counter who would scrutinise it - and you - very carefully. He would then go in the back and retrieve what you wanted. If you were in a restaurant or bar, you couldn't carry your own drink from one table to another until the late 1980s - when the rules began slowly to change. Until then, restaurants were not allowed to serve more than a set amount of drinks with meals on a Sunday, and then only between 5pm and 9.30pm. Attitudes changed in earnest in 1997, when liquor stores were allowed to open on Sundays. You could even walk the aisles yourself, by then. They had good selections, too. Now Toronto has a thriving club scene that's second to none. Hollywood celebrities show up here every autumn for the film festival, sing the city's praises and get plastered at all the right spots. The outdoor patio scene is still going strong - even in mid-October, when it's dark by 6pm and the temperature's in the single digits. As for women taking their drink into the toilet, or 'can' as we sometimes call it, surely there has to be a more common-sense solution. They could finish their drink first, have a friend watch over it or park it at the bar. Alas, common sense was never part of Ontario's approach to liquor.
