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Here's a related question - today at lunch we wandered into a newish restaurant we'd eaten at a couple of times, call it the Brand X Bar and Grill.

The "bar" part of the name didn't mean much to me, and although I knew they served beer I didn't really think of the place as a bar, or as a liquor establishment.

We sat down at one of the tables, ordered, got about halfway through the meal and my wife innocently asks "What does a red 51 mean on a sign?"

I completed the bite of hamburger steak I was hoovering up and asked where, pray tell, did she see a red 51 on a sign?

Behind me (and beside what I have to admit was a bar), on the other side of a floor-to-ceiling partition, through one of the glassless windows cut into the wall, was a 51% sign. The place is small, but it is divided between a bar area and a dining area. The sign isn't at the door. I've been on the other side of that partition and I'd swear the sign is new. The whole place is new, it would make sense the sign might have gone up in the last few days.

The TABC's posting for the establishment just indicates the red sign, it doesn't say anything about what portion of the premises are off-limits to CHL.

We were on our motorcycle, so there wasn't much privacy to disarm. I gulped down my last two bites, got the check, paid, and we left.

The fact there was a bar didn't register. There's also a soda shop in town that has a bar with barstools. It's not 51% or posted 30.06. Seems business as usual for me to carry there. The restaurant just didn't seem any different. I had no intention of committing a crime.

And, for an absolute fact, I'm not carrying there again - unless...

How can I tell what portion of a business is 51%? I've heard of bars in restaurants or in hotel lobbies where the bar was 51% but the rest of the place wasn't.

Complicating things, of course, is I believe the sign doesn't have to be there for it to be a crime to carry.

Barring positive indication the restaurant half of the place isn't included in the 51% posting, I'm not carrying there again.

What do you think? 51% buried inside a building - is just the bar off limits?