The Chronicle Inadvertently Ruins BYOB For Everyone

When the Bargain Bites tour took its turn at the newish Afghan restaurant De Afghanan Kabob House last week, reviewer Tara Duggan mentioned in passing that the Polk Street dive is BYOB. Unfortunately, as the Chron soon discovered, you are not supposed to announce that a place is BYOB, because well, that's not good for anyone. From the BauerBlog:

A licensing representative at California Department for Alcoholic Beverage Control wasted no time in e-mailing Tara: "This is just a courtesy notification having to do with the restaurant located at 1303 Polk St. At the end of your excellent review yesterday, you mentioned that the establishment did not serve alcohol, but allows guests to bring their own. This is illegal ... At the present time, we do not intend to file against the restaurant, but will assign undercover officers to drop by periodically to make sure that the practice has ended."

While sniffing out illegal BYOB operations is clearly an excellent use of undercover cops' ABC officers' time—the City just topped 100 homicides, btw—restaurants and diners alike can't be happy that the ABC/fun police is cracking down on this. Especially for smaller restaurants like De Afghanan that use BYOB as a marketing tool—not to mention brand new places like Bar Jules that go BYOB so they can debut prior getting their license—it might very well lead to a dry spell in more ways than one.
· BYOB? Don't even think about it. [Between Meals]
· Bargain Bite: De Afghanan Kabob House [Chron]

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