Happy hours return as new Indiana laws take effect
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It's July 1, so you know what that means — lots of new state laws take effect today.
Why it matters: Everything from an end to the prohibition of happy hour drink specials to stricter rules around third-grade reading that could hold more kids back are now the law of the land.
Fun fact: Most laws passed during the legislative session don't take effect until July 1, because that's the beginning of the state's fiscal year.
Here's what you need to know about the laws taking effect today:
🍻 Happy hours are back!
- After a 40-year hiatus, legislation was passed allowing bars and restaurants to offer "happy hour" drink specials and carryout cocktails.
- Another new law allows restaurant servers as young as 18 to ring up and serve alcohol.
📵 When students start heading back to school later this month, they'll need to put their cellphones away.
- Lawmakers banned K-12 students from using wireless communication devices — including cell phones, tablets, laptops and gaming devices — unless given permission by a teacher for educational purposes (or in the case of emergencies).
📕 Third graders who can't pass the state's reading exam by the end of the school year will likely have to repeat the grade.
- A new law tightens exemptions that had allowed thousands of students who weren't proficient in reading to be passed onto fourth grade anyway.
- Between the lines: This was a controversial bill during the legislative session. Debate raged over which is more damaging — being promoted without sound reading skills or being held back a grade.
🎒 One more for the parents of school-aged kids: Make sure they're going to class.
- Lawmakers beefed up enforcement of the state's truancy laws in effort to battle chronic absenteeism.
- Any student with 10 or more unexcused absences is considered "habitually truant" and must be reported to the local prosecutor.
🍆 Pornhub is back, for now.
- One of the world's largest pornography websites, Pornhub, disabled access to its content last week in protest of a law set to take effect today that requires users of pornographic and adult-oriented websites to verify they are at least 18 years old by providing their driver's license or registering through a third-party verification service.
- The website is back up for now, though, after a judge temporarily blocked the law, saying it is likely unconstitutional.