I’ve been going to a few bars around the area and have been repeatedly told that you can’t have a deck of cards in the bar. Now the college town I got my drinking stripes in had no rule (that was enforced anyways) like this and cards were a necessary part of going out, either for drinking games to facilitate some good binge drinking and some illicit activity in mixed company or just to play some games with the guys to kill time. Now going out around here is really a let down in that we can’t jump into a spirited game of Euchre. Is this no cards in the bar rule common? Is it some archaic law that has yet to be pruned of the books? I find it hard to believe this is cutting down on illegal gambling, and I’m not in some bible-thumping-tuck-your-head-in-the-sand berg that fears all forms of entertainment. This rule to me seems much less constitutional and more importantly more idiotic than the no smoking in the bars laws. what gives?
I’ve never heard of a bar that outlawed playing cards, but then again, I’ve never known or seen or heard of anyone who wanted to play cards in a bar, either. Don’t they have pool tables where you are?
I used to play Spades all the time in my local dive bar.
I think maybe the bars around your area (what area, BTW?) had bad experiences with card players, probably because they were playing drinking games with them. Bars nowadays are cautious about anything that encourages excessive drinking.
Here in Virginia, there are no bars per se; hey’re all restaurants that happen to serve alcohol. They cannot advertise “Happy Hours” outside of their establishments. And if they only have an “On” licence, don’t take your drink out of the restaurant. (I once walked around the chain of a sidewalk patio of a bar when the waitress cautioned me to get back in the chain. I stepped back over, placing my feet in the same place but with the chain now behind my legs. “Much better,” she said.)
We were told to stop playing cards in Denny’s once.
Never regret what seemed like a good idea at the time.
I was at a bar in Rolling Meadows, IL and was told to stop playing cards - that it was against city ordinance. But Omniscient, I see you’re from Plainfield, so maybe it’s a state ordinance.
No trouble playing cards in Minnesota - in fact, bartenders would hand decks out.
Never hear about the card rule. But once I was told that I could not take photographs in a bar. They did not say why. Any ideas?
Anyone else have some strange bar rules?
Scoobysnax
Save water drink beer!
An nice wierd bar rule in the state of Utah is:
You can’t have more than one drink in front of you at a time, you have to finish one before the waitress/waiter can set down another.
To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
That one’s easy. You may get a picture of someone who doesn’t want it known they are/were in a bar.
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My guess is that it has something to do with the local gambling rules. Most city/town ordinances have prohibitions against gambling (that is, if gambling’s not completely illegal in the region, it’s usually only allowed in zoned areas).
So, the bar owner is probably just worried about losing his liquor license if someone is playing poker (or some other gambling card game) in his/her bar and has decided to ban playing cards outright.
I always play cards in bars. I hope there isn’t a law-gin rummy is life, man.
Next thing you know they will ban the other oldest bar pasttime-dirty limericks. Then life will be no fun.
Living most of my life in TX I don’t recall ever seeing anyone ever playing cards in a bar. Might be a state law.
It’s easer to get forgiveness than to get permission.
I have been told that cards are against the law (not just bar policy) and have gotten into a handful of heated discussions with owners and managers about it. I’ve gone out in Rolling Ghettos…I mean Meadows 
and remeber being told to stop playing. Alumni Club, Stadium club both yelled at me. Down here in Joliet/Crest Hill/Plainfield you can’t play cards, we got yelled at and they have river boats in Joliet. But I went to college in Champaign Il and they would hand out decks at the bar, so that rules out a state law, unless they are just not enforcing it in college owns, wouldn’t suprise me after serving alot of minors. Sounds to me like an archaic rule that needs to be changed, I’d spend alot more time and money in a bar where I can casually drink and play cards with my friends. We run out of shit to talk about and leave, but a game holds our interest and if its a spirited game of Asshole we can run up a steep tab.
The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is
yours to draw…
Omniscient; BAG
I would gladly trade our no alcohol sales on Sunday law for your no cards in a bar law. You people in Illinois get quite a few Sunday beer sales from us(in Indiana).