A Utah bill that will open retailers to fines if they sell M-rated games to children (as long as they advertise beforehand that they won't) has now passed the Utah Senate. The bill made little sense originally, was completely defanged as it passed the House, and the Utah Senate has passed it with a 25-3 vote.

Patricia Vance, the President of the ESRB, passed Ars an open letter to the parents and leaders of Utah that detailed the proposed legislation. "While the intent of this legislation would be to hold retailers accountable for compliance with their stated policies—presumably in that negligible 6 percent of instances where they fail to comply—the unfortunate reality is that it would introduce a liability that will likely force many retailers to seriously consider abandoning their voluntary policies and ratings education programs, undoing years of progress made on behalf of parents and their children."

That's perhaps the most insane thing about this bill: if a retailer has an advertised, strong policy about selling certain games to children, it puts itself at an increased legal risk.

The original bill was amended in a number of ways, adding the ability for a retailer to dodge the fine if an offending employee goes through a training program. If the customer misrepresented his or her age to the retailer? No harm, no foul. To avoid breaking the law, all the retailer has to say is the employee has been retrained, or the buyer lied about his or her age. As it stands, there is nothing in the bill that is enforceable.

What does it mean now that the bill has passed both the House and the Senate? If governor Jon M. Huntsman Jr. signs the bill into law... nothing much. If a game is sold to a child that someone feels shouldn't be, it has to be proven that the retailer has an advertised policy saying they won't do such a thing. Then there has to be proof the child didn't lie about their age or show fake ID. Then the employee gets put through training so it doesn't happen again. If all this is proven to have happened again? Look out! Deceptive trade practices have taken place, and there could be fines for the retailer.

The ESA and the ESRB are likely to continue their opposition to the bill, and could challenge it in court on constitutional terms. But the language of the bill is so limp there is really no fear of any action ever being taken on the sale of games. Still, the possibility does exist that Utah will end up writing a big check to the ESA for legal fees if the bill is thrown out, a rather common occurrence when it comes to game legislation.

The ESA has been awarded over $1.7 million in attorneys' fees for fighting bad legislation so far, including $182,349

in Michigan and over

$510,000 in Illinois.

That's nine rulings in seven years. In

Illinois, funds from the public health department, welfare, and

economic department of development were raided to pay the ESA's legal fees. Utah may be next.