Posted on 03/23/2006 8:18:08 AM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
I guess I picked the right week to give up drinking.
I have to admit, it sounds as though I may be taking the wrong side here. This is beginning to sound like a Statewide crackdown on liquor establishments. I know from friends that Texas has been getting really tough on their DUIs(DWIs?) but I would think they would have the courage to do it through new legislation and not through nearly extinct public intoxication laws. Right now I have my own bones to pick with the tax bandits at Austin to get too involved with the revenuers as well. What the heck is happening to Texas? My families have been in the State since the days of the Republic but I am now in the process of trying to sell a piece of west Texas property which has value only to the county tax office. I only hope I can escape with my hide. Maybe I should open a bar on the property instead? No, can't do that, dry county. . .</sarcasm
That behavior is already illegal.
Driving while intoxicated, whether or not that drunk kills someone, is illegal, but it doesn't stop drunks from getting behind the wheel.
Yes....this small neighborhood bar went through sort of several of these repeated "sting" operations....I mean, if a patrol car follows you closely enough for long enough, they're going to cite you for some type of moving violation, be it not flashing your turn signal long enough, etc. The bar was a mom and pop type place, and my friend said "mom and pop" were having to pay so much for fines, etc., that they were considering selling the place and retiring. That's really what the TABC's goal was, because other establishments nearby were not being targeted similarly. Who knows? Maybe getting "mom and pop" to sell was some kind of land-grab scheme?
Are you planning on getting drunk in public?
If laws were broken there will be a defense but it won't be Texas law officers who need it. And that's not sugar-coating anything. Don't mess with Texas.
Hell no! I thought the info might add to the discussion. Maybe someone who has been caught up in this web might even be reading this thread.
Plus....my curious mind would like to know the penalties for being under the influence in public. I do know it is a misdemeanor.
No law, not even prohibition, is going to prevent that. Not even absurdly fascist measures like the one taken in Texas.
You're asking the wrong person if you think I may disagree. I think I've told this story on FR before but in short, each time I leave my west Texas property unattended for too many weeks (my primary home is in Albuquerque) someone tries to move in on it. The last time was the city who last year, without asking, hauled 15 to 18 loads of caliche dirt in and built a street through the middle of my commercial lots where no right-of-way existed. Only a meeting with the city manager resolved this. The mystery here is that this little west Texas town is extremely conservative and were even talked about on the national cable news for the unusual way they were represented during GWB's first innauguration. If I told you what they did, you would know the place.
You got me. I don't know what is going on but it's not good. Sadly it will probably will not get better either. When Texas says, "Don't mess with Texas" I guess they mean it.
Muleteam1
NEW LAW! NEW LAW!!
This is great! Put it under the heading "2-birds-with-one-stone" laws.
We stop people at the border and give them sobriety tests. This way they are not drunk in public!
If they are drunk, we arrest them. If not we send them back!
Yeah!
And when the beer runs out they go home to sleep it off
HA-HA-HA
Okay, so the state is going after those that are considered to be P.I. at the source, their local neighborhood bar. Where do the cops go to next to "catch" those that are considered to be "P.I.", btw, being P.I. is a very loosely defined subjective state in the mind of the individual arresting officer at the least as drunkenness isn't required to be proven to be considered "P.I." in Texas, only an appearance to be, do they start turning out for weddings, sporting events, concerts or maybe the backyard Bar-B-Que and most any other large gatherings where alcohol is likely to be sold, served and/or consumed? Where does the inept madness stop once the Gestapo styled police start down this very slippery big-brotherism slope?!
I was surprised also.
Yeah and that "except" is going to bite them in the butt in the end. It never stops with "just this one thing"
Personally, I have high hopes the TABC will be working undercover at the next texas govs campaign headquarters (both parties.)
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