BYOB in Ocean City - Part Two

"This is how it all starts, next there will be bars and soon OC will be crappy and dirty just like Wildwood".
— beans36

The above reader response is one of many in a Philadelphia Inquirer article on the BYOB debate in Ocean City. In our last issue, I suggested that BYOB was not the way to go in Ocean City. The response to my column was split right down the middle, but I admittedly feel guilty for not supporting the Ocean City chefs. The truth is that I have never seen anything like this. There are literally thousands of dry towns, but even the dry towns allow BYOB. Ocean City represents a very unique situation.

Rather than apologize to the chefs, I have no other choice than to get real. I have to report what I really think. I would never advise a serious chef to open a spot in a place that had a 134--year history of maintaining a law that prohibited BYOB. In point of fact, I believe that a restaurant needs a liquor license to survive, even though a BYOB establishment can certainly make it. Give me a situation that suggests that even BYOB is impossible, I would run (not walk) away. Operating a restaurant is as difficult as it gets - and very frankly, a chef-driven concept (at least in my mind)doesn't work in Ocean City

I have just succeeded in making the Ocean City chefs even more angry with me, but they all knew what they were getting into, and while a change in the law is possible, I would never bet on it. BYOB in Ocean City would absolutely be helpful to the local restaurant community, but the chances are that it's not going to happen. And I freely admit that maintaining the status-quo is not all that bad.