Public intoxication stings catch 2,200 in Texas bars

chron.com ^ | 3/23/06 | Anne Marie Kilday

[takenoprisoner]

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.

The arrests included people who were drunk in bars, who sold alcohol to a drunk person, or a drunk employee on the premises of a bar or restaurant with a license to sell alcohol, said Carolyn Beck, a spokeswoman for the TABC.

The commission has been responsible for enforcing the state's alcoholic beverage code for the past 70 years. In August, 2005, the agency announced it was beginning a crackdown on public intoxication, using both undercover and open operations.

The agency has used undercover agents before, Beck said. In a recent operation, agents infiltrated 36 bars in a Dallas suburb and arrested 30 people for public intoxication.

[calex59]

Catching drunks outside a bar in most states is entrapment. It is illegal for cops, in a lot of states, to wait outside and arrest people going to, or getting into, their cars.

I would think the same would hold for arresting people inside a bar and saying that they were going to drive drunk later so we can now arrest them.

This is facist thinking and has no place in America. Many of the people arrested were staying at the hotels that housed the bar they were drinking in.

This is as bad as hate crimes, or maybe worse. Arresting people for what they MIGHT do. Should we arrest people standing outside banks because they might hold it up? How about gun owners? This is one the antis would love. We arrest all gun owners because since they have guns they might commit a crime.

If we allow sh** like this to happen with the bars it won't be long before they are doing it in other areas and maybe in areas you won't be happy about.

[houeto]

I think it is illegal in most states to sell alcohol to someone who is drunk.

In Texas, it is against the law to sell the first drink to a stone-cold sober person if that person is known by the server to be a town drunk.

[elkfersupper]

Not just me, theres thousands more just like mine.

And you're going to start a war. Hope that makes you happy.

[SheLion]

Look at all the "conservatives" defending this!

The world has gone nuts, metesky.  What should be up is down and what should be down is up.  What the hell IS this?!

[Millee]

Go back??????? ;o)

I don't know about you, but I'd be reeaallyyy pi55ed off for getting arrested when I didn't break any law. PI, my foot!

[houeto]

But they were drunk in public.

Drunk = .08

.08 = 2 beers for a small person/ 3 beers for a 180 lb. man.

[MineralMan]

"You might be right. I sure didn't want that drunk bastard to drive across the median and hit my 17 year old daughter head on. She would have been 27 on the 28th of May. If your idea of freedom is getting drunk and doing anything you want to, then you can keep it."

---

I'm very sorry to hear about your daughter. I am also in favor of serious penalties for drunk drivers. However, I am opposed to arresting people who have been drinking but are not driving.

How do you feel about the people they arrested who were going to go from the hotel bar up to their rooms? Were those arrests justified because your daughter died in a terrible automobile accident?

If you can explain the connection, I'll be happy to listen.

[Junior_G]

Ok, here's my flaky theory for the day. I wonder if maybe, post-9/11, people are embracing all of this nanny-state crap because it makes them feel like we have control of something even as half the world wants to see us all dead. It just seems to me that the nanny-staters have really picked up a lot of steam lately, and I've been trying to figure out why that is.

[takenoprisoner]

First, I don't get stumbling drunk. Second if a free man is of mind to, and he has prepared a way home, I don't care if he gets stumblin drunk in a bar so long as he is not an actual undeniably most overt nuisance and/or threat to himself or other patrons. In that case, call him a cab and send him home immediately.

Why is that too much for you?

[TheForceOfOne]

Soon they will come knocking on our doors in order to go through our homes confiscating weapons and looking for contraband from the good citizens who manage to slip these items passed the government camera's install around our homes for our protection.

[MEGoody]

I wasn't even aware the cops could arrest you for public intox as long as you were inside the bar and not causing a problem.

[Junior_G]

What pisses me off is that you can now go to just about any other nation in the world and enjoy numerous freedoms that you can't enjoy in America. That's just backwards and wrong.

[who knows what evil?]

According to the article, these stings were staged to prevent DWI.

Why didn't they just arrest everyone going into the bar then? YOu have to assume they were ALL going to have a drink. Texas? (spit!)

[metesky]

guess after years as a paramedic and working emergency rooms I just have little sympathy for people who let alcohol control them and can't control it.

Not everybody out for a Saturday night's yahooing is an out of control drunk, ya know.

Or have you let yourself become like the inner city cop who because he meets 95% scum on his job is convinced that 95% of all "civilians" are scum?

[who knows what evil?]

Technically, if the cops can arrest them for being drunk in a privately-owned bar, they can arrest them for being drunk in their houses.

They'll get around to it.

[PAR35]

This is gotta be one of the world's most facist stings

Are spelling rules fascist as well?

[MEGoody]

.08 is the law

What law? The law states you cannot sit in a private business with a blood alcohol level of .08? I don't think so.

Just so you know, I am very anti-alcohol and wouldn't have been upset at all if prohibition had stuck. But to arrest someone 'just in case' they might do something - we don't want to allow our cities/states/nation to go down that road.

[TheForceOfOne]

These are the consequences Osama wished for. The attack on 9/11 was meant to kill Americans, but what he really despised was our freedom.

I am all for monitoring terrorists and their sympathizers but leave Americans alone whenever possible. This article makes me think of the Nazi's.

[Sir Gawain]

All this pain because someone walked out of a bar drunk and was too macho to give his keys to someone sober.

Not too macho. Probably just too drunk.

[TheForceOfOne]

And arrest those who thought about going to the bar to have a drink too. Orwellian...