Maybe you’ve got a 20-year old bottle of Burgundy chilling in your wine cellar that you want to drink for a special dinner out. Or, you just want to order something nice off the wine list. Up until now, D.C. ABC regulations dictated that you can’t carry any remainder out of the restaurant. So of course, most folks would either try to finish the whole thing, leave it behind, or stealthily hand it off to some other lucky diner. This leaves you with the options of dangerous, wasteful, or illegal.

But in case you missed the news briefly noted this morning, this silly regulation looks to be going away. The D.C. Council Tuesday voted to allow restaurants to re-cork wine and place it in a tamper-proof, single-use plastic bag (like these). The Examiner quotes Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry as the surprising voice of reason here: “If you buy a very expensive bottle of wine and you can’t carry it with you, you tend to drink it. And you may get drunk. And then you’re out there driving while drunk.”

This is great news for wine lovers and restaurants alike. No waste for consumers and higher sales for restaurants. And with so many more wine-centric restaurants, wine bars and more to come, this change comes at just the right time.