Wringing out New Year's Eve

There wasn’t a word about this on the major news sites, but this is big, people: In some parts of the country, revelers will have to remain stone sober this New Year’s Eve, even if they plunk down some serious coin for one of those fancy dinner-and-dancing restaurant packages. Which means the establishments in those areas are going to lose all those high-ticket Champagne, wine and cocktail orders that give them a nice start to the next 12 months.

The party pooper is the calendar. New Year’s Eve falls on a Sunday night, and many areas prohibit the sale of alcohol on the Christian Sabbath. So if residents of those areas want to toast 2007 with a glass of champagne at midnight, they’ll be doing it in their homes.

This is the first time this has happened since the year 2000. But there is a bright side: There won’t be a similar time warp back to Prohibition for another decade.