Should the intoxication standard for driving apply to patrons in a bar?

Salt Lake Tribune - Utah :
"'... you don't take the law of the street and bring it into the bar unannounced.' A bigger worry, added [defense attorney Pat] Shea, is that 'if we have spies in the state looking at our drinking habits, we don't live in a democracy.'"

As reporter Mike Gorrell explains clearly in this story from the Salt Lake Tribune, the issue before an administrative law judge of Utah's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control is whether the .08 BAC level applicable to drunk drivers applies to patrons in a bar. It seems like a stretch to me; after all, the authorities in many jurisdictions promote such ideas as the "designated driver" and cut-rate cab fares on the implicit assumption that the crime consists in the operation of a vehicle rather than the mere fact of substantial intoxication.

Attorney Shea's lament about democracy is ill-founded. Democracy, the idea that the majority can do as it likes and the government expresses that unfettered will, is precisely how we get into a mess like this. In a republic founded on individual rights - there used to be such a place, it was called the United States - there would have to be some showing of actual or at least imminent harm to justify getting some bureaucrat between a peaceful citizen and his bartender.

Much more troubling to me is the prosecutor's statement, as reported by Gorrell, that "despite Teazers' efforts to run a good operation, ..., 'strict liability applies here because it affects public safety.'" It appears club security did right by tossing out two men, one of whom dropped his pants and another who pinched a woman's bottom, but somehow were remiss in not dealing with three young women who sloshed some beer on the dance floor while walking arm-in-arm. Being an economist, I have a weakness for thought experiments. Try this one: Line up three young women stone sober but well into the evening, ask them to hold glasses of beer, then lock arms and walk in killer heels across a room. Don't you imagine that, more often than not, some beer would spill?

If we are going to criminalize having a good time in a bar, the least we can do is make that clear before we start charging bar owners, employees and patrons. On that point, Teazers' attorney Pat Shea is absolutely right.