Like many of my fellow Americans, one of my memorable wha? moments when I was a young naif, first traveling in other countries, was the realization that grown-ups in pretty much every other place in the world were allowed to drink in movie theaters.

Rep. Jim Moeller looks like my kind of politician.
  • Rep. Jim Moeller looks like my kind of politician.

You went to the concession stand to get your popcorn (or whatever weird snacks were popular in whatever country you happened to be in), your soda, your coffee... and your booze: beer, wine, small jars of Slovak liquor that tasted like gasoline to sip-'n'-grimace through a showing of As Good As It Gets during which almost nobody in the cavernous Soviet-era theater watched but just talked through. Whatever you wanted.

Now Washingtonians have the chance to live the dream. A new bill, sponsored by Rep. Jim Moeller and Sen. Craig Pridemore (both D, from the Vancouver area), will allow a "theater" (defined in the Senate bill report as "an establishment in which feature motion pictures are regularly exhibited") to get beer and wine licenses so you can drink while watching a movie.

Why would two guys from Vancouver sponsor this kind of bill? The Colombian newspaper has the big scoop.

Kiggins Theatre owner Bill Leigh has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into fixing up and reopening the downtown Vancouver landmark. He hopes a new bill proposed by a Southwest Washington lawmaker will help him attract more patrons by allowing him to serve alcohol in the theater’s auditorium.

That's democracy, people, working for you. I imagine Seattle voters would like this bill to pass as well—what's good for the movie-watchers of Vancouver is good for the movie-watchers of Seattle!