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Restaurant Wine "Doggy Bag" Law
Maryland restaurant diners who order a bottle of wine with
their meal, but don't finish the whole bottle, may take the
bottle home with them. Under a new Maryland law that took
effect on July 1, 2006, restaurants may allow customers to
take home unfinished bottles of wine, provided that servers
re-cork or re-cap the unfinished bottle.
Maryland law prohibits open containers in what is considered
to be "passenger areas" of automobiles. Restaurant customers
should be reminded, however, that the unfinished bottle of
wine is still considered an "open container" under Maryland
law and must be transported home in the trunk, cargo area,
locked glove compartment or area behind the rear-most seat
of an automobile.
Re-corked bottles should be securely re-corked, pushing the
cork as far into the bottle as possible. Re-capped wines (for
bottles with screw-top seals) should be tightly re-capped.
Screw-top bottles can also be re-corked with a spare cork
from another bottle. In both cases, the wine should be placed
in a retail or carry-out bag.
Customers should retain a copy of their itemized receipt in
case they need to prove that the wine was purchased in
conjunction with a restaurant meal.
This law applies ONLY to wine and
DOES NOT cover beer and spirits.
This law implies only one partially-consumed bottle per paying
customer. The law DOES NOT allow for
full bottles of wine to be sold to go.
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