User Panel
Posted: 3/23/2006 2:45:22 PM EDT
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060323/od_nm/bars1_dc;_ylt=ArAsbqk9L7UXH7a1gCroEyys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-
Daaaaaaaaayumm! This can't be happening in TEXAS!!! |
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But I dont want to be drunk in public, I want to be drunk in the bar...
- R. White |
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What the hell !?!?!?!? That ain right. I'm not one for drinking to much, and am all for getting rid or drunk drivers, BUT COMON !!!! Thats just not right. Have a feeling this ones gonna go over like a terd in a punch bowl.
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Man, that F*#Kin B/S. They can't prove in court that he/she was going to drive any way. How do they know that he/she wouldn't take a cab home?
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Ah yes, public intoxication. The thing they arrest you for when there is nothing else. I'm waiting for one of these undercover guys to run into the wrong guy.
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The wrong guy will go from a small fine to 20 years in jail for assault on an officer. Yeah, that makes sense. A long time after the officer's fat lip heals, the wrong guy will be getting to know Bubba in jail. |
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That's why I don't drink in public. I just take a hit of X and do a line of coke.
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Well if that were true they would be targeting bars where people drive to/from and not hotel bars where most patrons have rooms and do not drive. Oh yeah, and are usually out of-town visitors so the hotel bar will not suffer a financial loss as there will be new patrons next weekend oblivious to the crackdown. This poor guy lost his job over it: Some drinkers, though, say the state is going too far in targeting bar patrons who may have no intention of driving anywhere – Mr. Byers, for instance, said he was merely going to retire to his room in the same hotel. Mr. Byers, 41, said he was relaxing at the Circle Spur Saloon at the Clarion Hotel where he was staying, near the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, when officers approached him. Apparently, undercover alcohol commission agents had identified him as drunk, either by his behavior or by the number of beers he said he had consumed – key indicators of intoxication, according to the agency. Mr. Byers said he had no more than six beers. Mr. Byers, a resident of Rogers, Ark., who is the director of maintenance for an aircraft charter company, was taken outside, handcuffed and sent to the Irving jail, where he posted $360 bond and was released. He had traveled to Dallas to help repair a plane and lost his job afterward, in part because of the arrest, he said. |
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Sounds to me like a supervisor put out a stupid memo to the troops and they are running with it to make a point. Texas has had the drunk in a bar for numerous years (public intoxication), but is only used when you come across someone who is falling down drunk and no will take them home.
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Looks like the war on drugs crusaders are longing for the good old days.
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Well, my liver and I had a discussion over lab results about a week and a half ago....
I only drink an occasional O'Doul's now.... No worries here..... Damn I miss the taste of good bourbon and Whisky. |
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Don't you mean a bourbon and water? You must be missing them. |
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Well let's see...
If you live in a dry/"partially wet" area then you "can't" buy beer and drink at home, and now you can't go to the bar and get drunk. So what are we supposed to do for recreation? Jumping off of balconies sober isn't any fun! |
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Coz ole buddy, IM me and we'll swap enzyme scores. As for the TABC busting people in bars, I find it very interesting that the .gov doesn't have enough resources to stop illegals but they have enough money for this crap. Oh well, I guess MADD is headquartered in Plano and we've got to keep the sheep safe. |
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That article isn't as lengthy as the one that in our local newspaper. The way it read was for people who are very very intoxicated and are not with a responsible party. They are also doing it to target bartenders/bars that continue serving people who are obviously drunk.
Which is true I don't know. I'll see if I can find the article from our local paper. ETA: Here is the one from our local paper. When I read it the first time it didn't seem like that big of deal of course I had been up all night working which I'm sure is not good for reading comprehension. It does seem pretty stupid. www.southeasttexaslive.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=16364374&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=512588&rfi=8
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Kikomax, It's the 165 glucose and off the chart triglycerides.....got me on Glucophage now.... And for the guy that said I mixed up my Bourbon and Whisky comment, thinking I would do something crazy like mix water with my bourbon...nope. I miss Bourbon and I miss Whisky. Bourbon - U.S. Made adult beverage Whisky - Scotch.... |
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This whole thing smells of MADD appeasement, political grandstanding, and revenue enhancement. WBAP in Ft Worth had the mayor of Irving on the other day and he was not happy about the bust there. He said his PD "reluctantly" went along on the raids. He almost sounded like they didn't have much choice in the matter.
Nothing new really. They did the same thing in Commerce when I was going to ETSU back in the late 70's. All the bars were downtown across the street from the PD. They made a run through every bar in town starting at 11pm. If you were stupid drunk you went to jail. It was about money then, it's about money now. Texas leads the nation in DWI arrest and drunk driving incidents. I still say if this state will do something about it's crazy liquor laws they can cut the arrest rate in half almost overnight. If you could buy alcohol in every town people wouldn't be driving under the influence as much as they do now. Common sense tells you driving 30 miles or more to a wet town versus driving two blocks will eliminate part of the problem. |
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And here we are thinking Pre-Crime was only in a movie.
So much for being punished for doing something immoral. Now it's time to get punished because we MIGHT do something immoral. Sigh. |
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Damn, I remember awhile back in Texas when they were hitting bar goers with PI's when they step foot out of the bars, even if they were about to get into a waiting cab they called! Behaviour like that just hurts the don't drink and drive campaigns. I don't have much tolerance for public nuescence drunks either though, so I won't lose any sleep over this.
Could the bars avoid this by becoming private establishments requiring a membership fee (cover charge)? Then the members would be in a private setting and not public....??? |
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Note to self, do not attend any more bachelor parties, birthday parties or office get togethers.
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Could the bars avoid this by becoming private establishments requiring a membership fee (cover charge)? Then the members would be in a private setting and not public....???
I doubt it. In a lot of "dry" counties you must purchase a membership before you can drink. TABC has control over anyplace that sells alcohol. |
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I think that it would be tough enforcing Public Intoxication in a private club. A private club does not fit the definition of "public" per the Penal Code. Public Intoxiction is not a TABC rule or law. Any officer has the same jurisdiction in an alcohol licensed premises. It is just the general PI statute that has been on the books for many years. They could still enforce the serving of an intoxicated person on the bartender/manager and could arrest someone once they come out of the club for PI. |
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Actually, it's apparently going over well with comparable agencies in other states. So well, in fact, they're wanting to use it as a model. |
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They can't prove that. Nor do they really care. They're not charging for "attempted DWI" or anything like that. It's just the PI. |
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Funny how this campaign didn't have a large PR front end, like "Click-It-Or-Ticket" et al. And before anyone says anything: Yes, of course I know that different agencies are responsible. |
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I knew I'd seen that somewhere. This story says that it was on The Today Show on Friday morning. That's prolly where I saw it; in between my daughter's cartoons and Jack Hannah. |
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F Those guys. Man that pisses me off. I can't believe that is happening here in Texas. Time to vote some folks out.
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Does this whole story remind anyone of that movie Minority Report, if you saw it that is. We should all just give up all of our freedom because someone might commit a crime and if we can prevent it, then losing your personal freedoms isnt that bad right? You know what would be even better, is if we just built a jail big enough to house the enitre state of Texas so that everyone would be under the control of the government at all times and crime would cease to exist.
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As long as they kept the gaping hole that was the U.S./Mexico border, that wouldn't be too bad an idea. It'd be funny to see them get all indignant about illegals real quick-like. |
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That's a great try, but being drunk to the point that you are falling down, pissing on yourself, can't talk and a danger is not a pre-crime. Now if they started arresting someone for thinking about getting falling down, slobbering drunk........... |
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twice, hell. i don't go to the initial trouble of thinking once... |
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this has been going on for along time. the people that are targeted are usually wasted and alone slobbering all over themselves. i ain't saying i agree 100% but I've been on both sides of this coin. i have taken people out of bars that i new were going to do something bad cause they were drunk and cold barely stand up, whether they were walking or driving they didn't need to be in public. I've also in my not so younger days been the waisted drunk, lol but most of theses people are w/o any friends to care for them at the time. just my 2 cents usmc5593 |
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This reminds me of a joke..maybe old but WTH: 3 vampires go to a bar and sit at a table. A waitress asks what would they like to drink. --Vam. 1 responses: I like some blood. Waitress turns to the 2nd vampire and asks what he like. --Vam 2 responses: I like some blood, too. She turns to the 3rd one and asks what he would like. --Vam 3 responses: I like some plasma. The waitress sums them up: Let me see if I have the order correct...You want two bloods and a bloods light. |
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Perhaps getting incredibly intoxicated and pissing on yourself in public is not a pre-crime, but using the premise that they might drive, key word there being might, isnt enough to justify going undercover in bars to find drunk people. And there is no way in hell that you can convince me that there is nothing better that LE could be doing. As a matter of fact, my stolen radio hasnt exactly reappeared due to great detective work.
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They don't need to "justify" a reason to work undercover and arrest a person intoxicated enough to be a danger. When I catch a guy speeding, I don't have to justify the reason I hid, ran radar and wrote the citation. I do not need to say that his speed might have killed someone down the road. TABC probably thought it would get them some favorable press and it backfired. TABC has been running that program for more than five years and no one noticed. If they would have just said they were arresting falling down drunks, no one would have noticed. They mentioned DWI and everyone is in an uproar over precogs (Minority Report) guessing who is going to kill someone. TABC just needs a political advisor. They made huge points with MADD and pissed everyone else off. As far as your stolen radio, TABC does not do investigative work on thefts. They are the state alcohol poilce, not your local PD or sheriff department. They check for tax stamps on whiskey bottles in bars, alcohol licenses/permits, minor in possession of alcohol, serving intoxicated persons, etc. |
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Yay for the MADD nazis, again. Elected judges + rabid lobbyists with a political agenda = bad.
If the NRA lobbied as well as MADD, we'd all be up to our armpits in cheap machine guns. The NRA's just not good enough at misrepresenting facts.... Gotta feel bad for the guy who got arrested who was drinking at the hotel bar where he was staying who (allegedly) lost his job over the incident. Woo hoo for the pre-emptive strike on a DUI who had no intention of driving. Note that reducing DUI and alcohol related fatalities is a good idea, I just have serious issues with they way they handle their business and misrepresent facts/statistics. MADD is more about politics than anything else. Unfortunately, those puritanical cocksuckers wield an enormous amount of political clout. |
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Iam well aware TABC deals exclusively with alcohol related laws, but am also aware that their recent actions were run with the help of local pd's (Irving PD was mentioned on one tv report). And perhaps it wasnt that big of a deal when they were looking specifically for falling down dead ass drunks, but appearently that changed recently and lead to several questionable arrests, such as the guy at the hotel who had a room. And why are bars considered public places? Is that strictly related to the liquor license? And exactly how is a PI determined, ive been told that you have to show that you are a danger to yourself and/or others. Does this mean you could be wasted in public, but as long as you werent doing anything dangerous you wouldnt be breaking a law?
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Yes, but who makes that decision? THe cops? If there is some Liberal with a hard-on for this, it will get out of hand. I know MADD was created for the right reasons, but I have seen my friend go through 7 kinds of hell for being Legally Drunk and riding a Dirt bike on the side of the road. Stuff like that is RIDICULOUS. |
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This tactic is just another act to generate revenue to feed the big system machine and the little guy is getting Fxxxxx over !! They dont give a shit if it was a good arrest or not it all falls on the little guy to bail himself out of jail and tell it to the judge..!! Yeah right they dont give a crap if it was justified or not, who is going to get that guy another job or get his job back..but so what about that.
my 2 cents |
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It is complete BS and is more about revenue raising than safety. 1) They recently got funding for 100 more officers in the last legislative session, so the scope of this is larger than ever before. 2) The folks were not wasted or slobbering based on TV video I saw. 3) Some did not even have cars (were out-of-town conventioneers and such), so the DWI angle is BS. 4) Why are they targetting hotel bars/guests and not the real bars in Deep Ellum, West End, etc.? We know the answer, don't we? 5) If you really want to stop DWI, than let them drink all they want and bust them when the put the key in the ignition. Then you can hit them with a DWI instead of a DO/PI which makes a huge difference. |
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The Irving situation was screwed up seven kind of ways. The TABC agents could have used a little more discretion and used some investigative skills. The conversation could have gone like this. "Excuse me sir, did you drive to this bar? No, did you ride with someone or are you staying here at the hotel? You are staying here? Do you have your hotel key? Would you mind showing it to me? We just want to make sure that you are not going to attempt to drive tonight because we feel that you are legally intoxicated. We are trying to keep you out of trouble. Thank you for your time, have a good time in Texas." If I was working with TABC that night, that how I would have handled it.
Instead of going to a hotel bar, why didn't TABC get together with Immigration and go to a Tejano bar. That way, they could get the falling down drunk illegals and send them back to Mexico. You can call it Mexican Interdiction. Texas also leads the nation in alcohol related fatalities, not just DWI arrest. This shows that people are still getting behind the steering wheel after having too much to drink and plowing into other motorist. This is the whole "danger to themselves or others" part of the Public Intoxication. If they were allowed to drive they could cause bodily injury to themselves or others If TABC is going to do a sting, contact people outside the bar that are about to get into their car and attempt to drive away. I wouldn't even wait for them to start the car. Arresting people in a bar that are not a danger to themselves or others but are legally intoxicated seems they are trying to become the morality police. Finally, the revenue went to the City of Irving, not TABC. |
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"Legally Drunk and riding a Dirt bike on the side of the road"= Operating a motor vehicle in a public place will intoxicated. Sounds like your friend made a bad decision that day. |
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Maybe, but it is not like he was riding next to any high-way or any thing. Belive me it was a 50/50 call either way.
It was one of those country roads where not very much traffic is; going from one party to the next house for St. Patty's day. |
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Otis was pretty good at arresting himself and going to lock-up without cop supervision. |
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Show me the dotted line that I need to sign to put you in charge of something important. |
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I know it's not [legally] as simple as this, but who's responsible for cutting the "grass"? If it's the city/county/state, I'll go along with it being a public place/thoroughfare. If it gets cut by the farmer (i.e. on some kind of easement between the field and the shoulder), I say "private". |
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