Well, maybe Jeph didn't have any other justification for Clinton to get drunk except a very, very weird bartender.
Could be smth. as simple as pointing out how policies like the one portrayed affect people trying to stay dry ... if the local bars in your place of residence refuse to serve non-alcoholic drinks, a lot of the resident night-life becomes off-limits.
Could be, but that would be.. a weird, non-existing problem. No bar would have such a policy (for all the reasons mentioned). People trying to stay dry have a lot of other problems (peer pressure, temptation, dealing with drunk people, paying 3$ for a small glass of soda) but being refused water is not one of them.
You're probably right - I was just racking my mind for a possible explanation & since Jeph going dry a while back was an inspiration for me to do the same, I came up with this one. I actually stayed away from bars for close to year, for fear of giving in to temptation - but apparently, I was lucky to have jumped the train at the last possible stop before "functional Alcoholic" Central Station (which is a misnomer - it just means that your schedule is flexible enough for you to keep up appearances & stay below the threshold where both you and people around you cannot
avoid noticing any longer). Breaking the habit turned out to be a lot easier than I had feared.
I didn't find peer pressure such a problem - though I have to add I'm way past college age - the only thing I found odd was that virtually everybody around me, from family and friends, to fellow barflies or servers, broached the subject A LOT more readily when I
stopped drinking, instead of when I was showing very clear warning signs, over a long period of time. Nobody ever tried to pressure me into drinking, but there's stuff like:
* People suddenly starting to worry about appearing drunk when you're around (Answer: Nope. I don't notice any difference until roughly 2:00 AM - but then it becomes pretty drastic)
* You've suddenly become
the leading expert on breaking an alcohol habit -> My weirdest experience was a bartender at my local watering hole suddenly loudly worrying about her habit. There's as many reasons for developing a bad habit as there are people - I only know what worked for me.
Wrt. to US law - I'm trying to make it a habit to not assume anything about US legal standards, especially when it comes to state-, or communal legislation. It's too easy to project my central european cultural experience onto a culture that
looks similar, but didn't develop in the same way. Though you are probably right: MA seems to be one of the places where the problem is rather one of getting properly shitfaced with gusto, in public.