Is a microwave oven the same as a stove?

(This post originally appeared on The Washington Post)

There are no actual “bars” in South Carolina. But since 1972, the state has allowed restaurants to serve alcoholic drinks.

To be a restaurant you need to demonstrate that you are “engaged primarily and substantially in the preparation and serving of meals,” according to regulations. Your establishment must be “equipped with a kitchen that is utilized for the cooking, preparation and serving of meals.” Your kitchen “must include at least twenty-one cubic feet of refrigerated space for food and a stove.” You also have to have tables for 40 people. If you satisfy those requirements, and a few additional rules, then, sure, you can also serve alcohol.

However, some establishments — particularly in popular college towns like Columbia’s Five Points — may have … well … kind of stretched the definition of “restaurant.” The area, which is home to the University of South Carolina, is a place of late-night partying that, according to local residents, is causing “vandalism, violence, public drunkenness and lurid behavior.” The residents are fed up and have banded together to challenge whether these establishments should be serving liquor at all.

They challenged the liquor license renewals of two such establishments and succeeded. An administrative court judge sided with the residents because, according to the judge, a microwave oven doesn’t fit the definition of a “stove,” and just heating up hot dogs doesn’t constitute preparing a meal.

“I’m trying to clean up Five Points,” Dick Harpootlian, the attorney championing the cause and representing the residents told The State news publication. “If this causes ripples across the state, that’s not my problem.” Harpootlian is on a mission to reverse the spread of the late-night college bars and, along with members of the community, plans to challenge the license renewals of more than a dozen restaurants in the coming months.

The judge’s ruling will very likely go through appeals, and the case may even be taken up to the state Supreme Court. But if it stands, it could potentially affect not only the establishments in Five Points but also hundreds of other restaurants across South Carolina.

“The law is the law,” Harpootlian said. “And it’s not being enforced.”

This is the risk some owners take when their businesses solely rely on a controversial law that could be challenged. I hope these people are buying ovens.