The term “happy hour” refers to a period of time, usually after lunch but before dinner, when bars and restaurants offer discounts on alcoholic beverages and sometimes food.
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If you need some fun facts to make conversation at your next office happy hour, look no further than this video. It includes five stories about pub life, from a look inside a company that turns tap handles into works of art to a search for the oldest pub in the world.
The leisure activities sailors were treated to during the ship's long voyages included boxing tournaments and dancing—but unlike the happy hours we know today, they likely didn’t involve alcohol. This article includes more information about happy hour’s origin story.
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This article provides a timeline of happy hour’s shifting shape in US culture, from the first recorded happy hour on a US Naval ship to today’s happy hours that sometimes include non-alcoholic beverages. It also details how prohibition actually helped establish the tie between alcoholic beverages and happy hour.
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Today, we know happy hours as a time where bars and restaurants offer discounted alcoholic beverages (and sometimes even food or non-alcoholic drinks) in order to attract customers during off-peak hours. But originally, the term “happy hour” didn’t involve alcohol at all.
States including Vermont, Massachusetts, and Utah started banning the discount drinking practice after anti-drunk driving advocacy entered the mainstream. This article has more details about happy hour bans across the United States.
Despite its origins as a US phenomenon, happy hours aren’t welcome everywhere in the country. This resource includes a map that visualizes every American state’s happy hour legislation, from the states with complete bans (like Massachusetts) to states that don’t have any happy hour legislation at all.
Massachusetts was the first US state to ban happy hours. The ban, which prohibits selling discounted drinks during designated times, occurred after a 20-year-old woman died in a drunken driving accident in Braintree, Massachusetts.
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