Posted on 11/06/2007 11:59:18 AM PST by suspects
Did you know that the commonwealth has the death penalty - for beer?
A crazed cannibal could eat an entire elementary school and the Massachusetts justice system would give him three hots and a cot until he died of old age. But if a six-pack of Sam Adams ends up with the wrong crowd? It’s the rope.
Actually the vat.
This weekend, according to the MetroWest Daily News, the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission loaded 250 cases of beer and 155 bottles of liquor on a conveyor belt and dropped them to their doom in a government-sanctioned execution.
Hangin,’ it seems, was too good for ’em.
In all, approximately $7,500 worth of hooch. Its crime? Being in the possession of “underaged” drinkers caught up in various sting operations.
Setting aside the idiocy of arresting a 20-year-old adult for buying a Bud Light, what’s the point of dumping the stuff into a vat? Why destroy 250 cases of perfectly good brew?
OK, it’s college beer, so “perfectly good” may be a stretch. More likely it’s stacks and stacks of Milwaukee’s Beast and Natty Lite, but still. What are we - barbarians?
According to Treasurer Tim Cahill’s press secretary, the booze was destroyed because some of the containers might have been opened. This is a copout. College beer, as any broke student will tell you, comes in cans. There’s no danger here. And who can’t tell if the cap has been popped on a bottle of Boone’s Farm?
I am willing to take that risk. On the eve of the execution, I begged Gov. Deval Patrick to issue an order of clemency. In exchange, I agreed to incarcerate these fermented felons in my secure refrigerator and/or liquor cabinet, at no expense to the taxpayers.
No deal.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
Title/story mismatch?
Go to the source link and read the ENTIRE article (or, if you want to cheat, the last 3 paragraphs).
There is a tie-in.
Mods are going to be upset with you for changing the title of the article. Should this go on the banglist?
I don’t know what my opinion should be on the article.
What a waste, especially when people are forced to go sober in much of the world.
I’d like to see them take an axe to a keg like Ness did.
What I do in that kind of situation is excerpt the part that matches the title. But that’s just me. I’m not criticizing, just saying.
I’ve been to parties in my younger years where the guys could dispose of a keg faster than Ness with an axe.
“Drowned in a vat of beer! Death, where is thy sting...?”
-W. C. Fields
Just a hunch.
two of my favourite things; guns and booze.
of course, never at the same time.
The beer was probably all skunky anyways. Who knows how long it's been sitting in "lock up" before it's execution, and how many heat waves and cold spells it's been through. Thwe hard liquor might be ok, but the beer? It's crap to start with, the ravages of time wouldn't make it any better.
yeah, but ness was getting rid of decent beer. frat boys tend to go after watered down yuck.
Boston Herald, as in Boston, Massachussetts? These are the same people who keep electing Ted Kennedy and John Kerry year after year? I’m guessing that there must be some conservatives there but honestly, seems most of the people in that place would be perfectly “on board” with this type of idiocy. I do feel some sympathy for those who can’t find the will to escape from the “People’s Collective of Massachussetts”. I’ll take my chances with the wolves and bears and cold...
I found out much later that they had their own Keg party on our and others nickel after their Watch was over. Mass in the old days.
>And who can’t tell if the cap has been popped on a bottle of Boone’s Farm?
Miami-Dade vote counter? This could be a hanging pop top situation.
I can forgive Robert Stack in the old ‘Untouchables’ series because he was an actor and using props. The real Ness, however, is unforgivable. What a sick-o.
http://www1.chapman.edu/wilkinson/socsci/sociology/Faculty/Babbie/e211/02-beersmasher.gif
Bud Light deserves nothing better than to be poured out on the ground, however a related story said that some of the destroyed beer was Sam Adams. Oh the hugh manatee!
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