LOCAL CUSTOMS
How happy hour works
The Atlas lists the deal a venue publishes. These pages are the habit and the law around that deal: what the clock means, what the bill adds, and where a discounted drink is not a legal offer. They sit off the front page on purpose.
United States
There is no national happy hour. A discounted drink that is ordinary in Miami can be a license violation in Boston, illegal after 9 p.m. in Virginia, and banned outright under that name in Utah. The Atlas records the deal a venue publishes. This page is the law and the habit around that deal.
Australia
Australian happy hour is legal and ordinary, and it is not a free-for-all. New South Wales and Victoria both tell licensees that a discount must not be built to make people drink fast. The price on the menu already includes GST.
Brazil
Brazil does not ban a happy hour. In São Paulo the after-work drink is a city habit, and a restaurant that will print the window and the price is rarer than the crowd at 6.
Canada
Canadian happy hour is the same shape as the American one — a posted afternoon window — with provincial minimum prices underneath it and a tax line that does not match the US bill.
France
France allows a happy hour. The cheaper hour has to come with a cheaper non-alcoholic drink as well, announced the same way, and an open bar is not a legal format. In Paris the window that gets printed is usually a weekday list from 5 to 8.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s happy hour is a commercial habit with no statutory clock. The licence says when alcohol may be sold. The discount is whatever the bar wrote on the board that week.
Japan
Japan does not ban a happy hour, and most of the country does not use the word. In Tokyo the posted window lives in hotel bars. The izakaya around the corner has a price, not a clock.
New Zealand
New Zealand allows a posted happy hour. The drinking age is 18, the price on the menu already includes GST, and a promotion built to make people drink too much is an offence.
Singapore
Singapore runs a full happy-hour culture under a tight liquor licence. The deal you will see most often is not “$5 off.” It is 1-for-1: buy one drink, the second is included, inside a posted window.
South Korea
South Korea allows a posted drink discount. In Seoul the window that gets printed lives in hotel bars. A neighborhood hof has a price, not a clock.
United Arab Emirates
Dubai’s happy hour is a hotel-bar product. Alcohol is legal only where a venue is licensed to serve it. The discount is real, the room is licensed, and the calendar has a month when the afternoon drink mostly disappears.
United Kingdom
London has happy hours. It also has pubs, where the idea is less of a product and more of a cheaper pint for an hour, and restaurants, where the early evening is an aperitivo list. A timed discount is legal. A promotion built to make people drink as much as they can is not.