From the “So Obvious It Hurts” File
Undercover agents from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission are arresting bar patrons for — get this — being drunk in public. Drunk people in bars? Never saw that one coming.
From the Reuters article:
Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkenness, (Commissioner) Beck said. The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car.
On the surface, this sounds reasonable. The only problem is that the TABC isn’t just targeting those who will eventually need to drive home. They’re also arresting patrons in hotel bars — actual guests of the hotel, to be precise. The whole “might do something dangerous” argument kind of loses steam when you’re talking about overweight out-of-town insurance salesmen at the local Best Western. Maybe the TABC worries that a drunk patron will run over and kill someone on that long walk to room 185.
If you ask me, someone in the TABC needed to make a boat payment and hit on this idea as a surefire fundraiser. Heck, these tickets practically write themselves! At this moment, revenue-minded sheriffs in every podunk town in Texas are saying to themselves, “Hey, why didn’t I think of that?”
Any resemblance to a Dukes of Hazzard episode is purely coincidental.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I heard that on the local news today. I couldn’t believe it. They were saying that you could walk out of the bar…drunk of course…not get in a car, not start a fight, talk to absolutely no one, and get arrested. You don’t even have to be a stumbling drunk.
If you ask me, it’s just an excuse to execute a body cavity search.
It’s nice to know there are actually state governments as dumb as Oklahoma. Every so often a bicyclist is run over in Texas by a drunk and the town the incident happens tries to pass a law banning, you guessed it, bicyclist. On an episode of “Firefly”(any fans?) one of the characters commented on governments. “Government. A body of people governing others while they themselves are largley un-governed”-Shepard Book. In my opinion, the problem isn’t that people might get drunk and harm others, certainly that happens, but what is the best response? Increased levels of government control is easy for the rest of us clean and sober types, but the government is known for going beyond it’s original mandate. “Arrest drunks getting in the drivers seat” becomes “Arrest anyone coming out of the bar”.
Damn. No easy answers.
Hmmmmmmmm…………Okay. How long before the Coppers start peeping in your residential windows……? “Hey, Marvin…..I just saw that guy carry in a paper sack……They might be gonna get “publicly” inebriated”.
The only ones I foresee benefitting from this, um, law?….are the Podunk city and county governments, and the lawyers already snapping and lunging at the end of their chains, waiting to be released.
Perhaps good intentions behind the law, but bad judgement nonetheless.
Why not just get them as they are coming out of Byron’s Liquor Warehouse?
And if you bought that girl a drink hoping to get lucky in room 185, well, that would be soliciting; watch out for Brian “Video Vigilante” Bates. BTW, I think that guy has got problems. I think he probably plays those tapes over and over and over again when he gets home.
Okay, I’m probably going to break some kind of blog etiquette by doing this, so let me first start out by saying I defend anyone’s right to down 12 shots of Vodka, get as smashed as they wish to be, walk home peacefully, and not have to worry about being chased down by the Texas Rangers with a Fox camera crew in tow.
That being said, I wanted to make a comment on Firefly. I noticed Fred brought it up, and I was afraid no one would see this if I posted it where the subject first came up three days ago. I was flipping through the ol’ Comcast Cable On Demand tonight. I can’t vouch for how Cox Cable’s On Demand works, but Comcast as a variety of news, movies, both free and ppv, music, old televison shows, network specials, etc all ready to view whenever you wish. Almost all the content is free, but a few you do have to pay for. Well, I was just browsing around on it tonight, and what did I see? The first 15 episodes (not sure how many there were) of Firefly available. Granted, they are not free, but you can view three episodes at a time for $2.99. Not too bad of a price I figure for anyone who doesn’t have the DVD’s and wants to sample them before buying it. It might be worth checking out if you have Comcast, and worth checking to see if Cox offers it.
Again, sorry for the off topic post. Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to head off to Deep Ellum, down 8 shots of goldschlauger, and hope that I get tasered on my way home.