The Washington Post recently profiled Irvin Koch, who, at the ripe old age of 103, is considered to be the world's oldest bartender. The centenarian's establishment, Irv's Basement Bar, is quite literally in the basement beneath his home in Anne Arundel County, on the outskirts of Baltimore. The bar came with the house when Koch purchased the property in 1963. The cash bar proved lucrative enough that he's kept operating it ever since.
If running a bar out of your basement sounds like a fun idea, you are unfortunately out of luck. Koch's dive is Maryland's last true "basement bar": an establishment that has more or less been killed off by modern zoning codes. As a lawyer for the county's liquor board told Baltimore's The Sun in a 2014 profile of Koch, "You can't do it these days. No one could come in now and do the same thing."
Koch's own establishment only survives because it was up and running long before the county's modern zoning and building codes were adopted. It's thus been grandfathered into the long list of county and state regulations adopted over the decades.
It's almost comical to count all the ways that Koch's existing business would be illegal today. Going through the list is also educational. It sheds light on the pieces of red tape silently at work blocking interesting "third places" like Irv's Basement Bar. Too bad. I bet it closes early, though...
Sorce: Reason.com
