##17 characters
17 characters
One bar bars one.
- The first one is a single instance of something
- The first bar is a place where you are served drinks
- The second bar means to prohibit someone from being served
- The second one is the general third person pronoun, referring to all people in general
You could imagine a context something like this:
One bar bars one, and suddenly one gets a reputation for being a troublemaker!
If you don't like the fact that the second bar has an s on the end (several other answers have "modified" forms like this, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist...), you could have
One bar did bar one.
which has an extra 4 characters, bringing the total to 21.