Paris
French restaurants have begun allowing their customers to take home open bottles of wine. Wine consumption has been dropping since the government began a crackdown on drunken driving last year, and restaurateurs were worried that people would stop ordering that second bottle. So now they are offering reusable corks and pretty bags so patrons don’t feel compelled to either drink too much or waste an excellent vintage. Some anti-alcohol activists oppose the bags, saying they will encourage people to polish off the bottle in the car. The blood-alcohol limit in France, 0.05 percent, is lower than in the U.S., where most states charge drunken driving at 0.08 percent or 0.1 percent.
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