This is the most brilliant method of increasing revenue for a state agency in the history of mankind (from the Chronicle):
Public intoxication stings catch 2,200 in Texas bars
More than 2,200 people have been arrested in Texas bars in the six months since the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission announced a crackdown on public intoxication, primarily targeting bars.
[…]
Part of the problem with enforcing the state’s code regulating alcohol sales is “people still think that a bar is place to go get drunk,” Beck said.
Somebody is bound to correct me on this, and explain how everybody knows some other place to go and get drunk. Right?
Don’t get me wrong. Polimom detests being around drunks. They are smelly, sloppy, and just a tad unpredictable, and only last week I freely shared my theory about Darwinism and the self-limiting genetic propensity of drunkards. But this whole infiltrating-bars- to-bust-drunks-in-their-lair approach just seems bizarre. And does this look just a bit on the “assumption of guilt” side?
TABC agents have the discretion to cite the person for public intoxication and release them to “a responsible party.” Or, a person who is so drunk “that they may be a danger to themselves or others” can be arrested and taken to jail, Beck said.
That “may” word is full of implications.
I see real possibilities with this approach, though, in terms of raising funds for beleaguered police agencies. For instance: Imagine the sudden influx of cash for Galveston Beach if they just cleaned up all those pesky vagrants lying around in the sand.
Alcohol addiction has ruined alot of lives, however, police going into a bar to arrest people who are – what?- drinking? It’s a bar! This just seems to me another example of the slow but steady drip, drip , drip of erosion of the right to privacy and free will. It’s beginning to feel like soon there will be nowhere that an individual isn’t or cannot be “monitered”. Gives me the creeps.,
I drink and I smoke and I drive too fast occasionally. I don’t drink and drive, I do one or the other. I watch R rated movies and maybe worse here and there. I have been working for many years to read every single book that was ever banned. I have been known to arrive at a bar sober, and several drinks and a half pack of cigs later, leave the bar with friends giggling as we walked the few blocks home. I am evidently guilty of believing that a bar is a place where one can get drunk, if one wants to. After all, I didn’t go to the Whole Foods Organic Juice bar, I went to the Old Point where the closest thing to organic juice you’ll probably find is the rum, not the OJ for screwdrivers.
What is wrong with people? I agree with Mermaid on this one. It gives me the creeps too. I am sick to death of feeling watched, regulated, and controlled. My husband and I took a road trip last week. We realized when we were already well on our way, that our insurance card was a month out of date. Our insurance was still in force, was paid for, was fine, but the card, the CARD. . . . .We actually got paranoid over the damn piece of paper. What if we got stopped? We wouldn’t have our papers in order. How absurd to worry about a piece of paper or a drink in a bar in what purports to be America.
For god’s sake, get in your houses, smoke in your closets, drink in the bathroom, don’t get in your car without your papers. Just don’t come OUT. That would make things so much easier on everyone else. We can arrest you for any of the above, so be afraid and no, having a drink and a smoke on your front porch won’t do either. We’ll be watching. But we won’t keep you in jail if you have lots of guns and drugs and cash, or if you murder someone. After all, we have our priorities.