Holiday Inn Bayfront in San Diego and the Hilton beachfront in Virginia Beach are the two that immediately come to mind. In both cases the bartenders told me that it's because the hotel bar was on a different liquor license than the rest of the hotel. In both cases they also informed me that the doors weren't guarded and nobody would try to stop me...

The Holiday Inn Bayfront SD? Now THAT is low class

Its fine to bring your own bottle of alcohol for consumption in your room as its a private domicile. You can go as far as to ask housekeeping to remove the items from the honor bar which is what I do and put whatever it is you want in there.

Now at restaurants be prepared to pay the corkage fee if you don't want to then enjoy your cocktail before going out to eat. I feel paying the corkage fee is worth it especially if it costs $30-$80 for a bottle of wine. If I have a $20 bottle of wine and its $10 for corkage thats fine because the $30 bottle of the house wine could be blah. Even if the corkage fee equaled the price of the bottle at the restaurant i know that I will enjoy the bottle more since I'm familiar with it. This is not to say that I would try restaurant wines if its a good restaurant.

I agree that its a good idea to BYOB rather than pay the high fees of the hotel.

I love the honesty. It's hilarious. I haven't tried it, but I'm usually too busy to worry about it. Honestly, it sounds like it would work though as long as you used a glass that came from the hotel.