A toast to progress

Ten years after the law changed, restaurant-goers in Massachusetts may still be unaware that they’re allowed to take home an unfinished bottle of wine — after the restaurant first jumps through hoops, of course, including placing the wine in a sealed and tamper-proof bag with proof that the wine was ordered with a meal that required “tableware.” Yes, really.

But as silly as those requirements are the law is important, not just as a service to customers but because it eliminates a potentially dangerous scenario — diners who drain the bottle they’ve purchased, just so it won’t go to waste, then get behind the wheel.

Now the state’s so-called “corkand-carry” law may actually be expanded, with a bill on the move that extends permission to private clubs and taverns to send patrons home with their unfinished wine. The original law was limited to restaurants and hotel dining rooms. But the same incentive to finish the bottle exists whether a person is dining at a restaurant or at the local country club.

State House News Service reported yesterday that the bill to extend re-corking permission to taverns, private clubs and war veterans’ organizations, which won initial approval in the House in July, was engrossed by the Senate yesterday. A few more procedural steps and it could be one of the rare, noncontroversial bills that passes during informal session and heads to Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk.

Massachusetts will never be Louisiana, with its drivethrough daiquiri shops — nor (in our more mature moments) would we want it to be. But this is a helpful, corrective measure and its enactment is overdue.