Posted on 04/15/2006 5:43:19 PM PDT by EveningStar
Yeah, I know - a Federal responsibility. But since they went so far as to arrest drunks in bars, why not?
Umm, yeah. Its always a good idea to arrest hotel customers in the hotel bar when you are trying to attract convention customers to your state.
I am sure that the Texas Convention and Tourist bureaus are real happy about the hotel arrests. Overzealous bureacracy screws fellow bureaucrats.
You need an undercover agent to find drunks in bars?
What to do with the undercover officers?
Have them stake out the parking lots to arrest drunks who attempt to drive?
This has to be one of the dumbest misuses of government power - not the most outrageous but the dumbest.
TABC does this continually.
Because of their power their presence is dreaded even in bars that are clean and law-abiding.
A friend of mine got arrested in that operation...basically an undercover officer sat near the bar and watched him and some coworkers drink a few pitchers of beer after work. As they paid the tab, the undercover officer approached them and arrested him and a girl he works with. Neither of them were driving, but it didn't matter. The officer said that he watched them consume enough beer to reasonably assume that they were drunk. The police say they are trying to get people before they get on the road, but it is just another inventive tax by Mayor Bill White and Company.
They come in dressed in plain clothes and watch waitresses and bartenders.
If a server serves someone who has had too much already TABC will arrest the server on the spot.
Good. What a waste of resources. I wonder why MADD does not advocate stiffer penalties for drunk driving that kills people, like equivalent to second degree murder.
Come on, that's easy pickins. After 1700 arrests at approx. $500.00 a pop it's easy to see why they were doing it.
If the truth be told, they are STILL doing it but advertising that they aren't.
Gov. Rick Perry has put in writing what he's been saying for weeks: During the special session that starts Monday, he expects lawmakers to cut school property taxes and retool business taxes before they take up other topics — including a possible teacher pay raise or tweaks to the ways schools are managed.
Special session starts Monday Perry directs lawmakers to focus on school finance, business taxes.
What in heck is wrong with those silly little boys and girls? Their sense of what's important to the rest of us is enough to drive me to drink.
Ok, Perry, keep em in the kennel till they get the job done . . . right this time.
Apparently, they have been relieved of that duty, which really should be the duty of management.
Wow, this sounds like something I'd expect from California, not Texas.
A good while back, some friends and I were taking a cab ride home. The cabby was speeding, I guess, and a cop pulled him over. We're sitting there, the cop shines his flashlight in at us, and says "Have you folks been drinking?" Well, yeah, that's why we're taking a cab!
Good news!!!!
I no longer live in Texas, but I seem to remember that in that state killing through an accidet whie driving intoxicated was considered FIRST DEGREE murder. In other words, if you take the risk knowlingly, you are just as responsible as if you planned the killing.
I like this idea, because the only real difference between a killing by a drunk driver and by a hit man is the difference in the odds. Hitmen are presumably more efficient, and less indiscriminate in their targeting.
Prosecuting homicidal drunks is also generally easy, because the evidence is less ambiguous: the drunk usually is found at the scene of his accident, still drunk. So, I say, hang drunk drivers, promptly, every one. No quibbles.
Actually, they tried that here where I live. They had undercover officers in bars watching people drink. They took notes of what cars they drove off in and called in nearby units to pull them over. The main outrage that took place was that several of those pulled over were obviously drunk, but no effort was made to prevent them from driving off.
Back in my honky tonk dancehall days, back when all my friends were rowdy, I'd see TABC show up sometime after midnight, local cops in tow to provide the muscle. Anybody who looked at them cross-eyed got himself hauled off to jail.
That was some time ago. A lot of us long for those rowdy days, but sad to say, we're just not up to it anymore.
But, the worse place I ever saw was outside Maryville, Tennessee back during the mid-eighties. I was attending a seminar at McGhee-Tyson Air National Guard Base.
In the evening we'd go to a local biker bar to toss darts, or try to look like it. At closing time the Maryville cops partially blocked the driveway so only one car at a time, single file, could drive out of the lot.. There was just enough room to squeeze by the cop eyeballing you. Get too close, off you went . . . with them.
Saw one video where they arrested a lady in the hotel bar and all she was trying to do was go to her hotel room. Spent the night in jail instead.
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