RANTS
When do we say ENOUGH already?
June 19 th, 2006
Here at the offices of the Smalltown Lowdown, we always are talking about Drinking and Driving. There is always some friend you hear that just got busted, or you hear of that unfortunate person who might have got in an accident and then there is the harsh reality of how dangerous it is when someone dies due to alcohol. What do you do about it? How do you get around it? Why has the law made it next to impossible to go out and have fun, yet does not give us an alternative? Why haven’t they made mass transportation available to these small towns or given us an alternative?
Why don’t they just make drinking illegal if they don’t want us to drink so much? We reported on a story found in Texas where they are now going into bars and arresting people fro public intoxication! WTF is this? What if me and a few friends decide to go out and we choose a designated driver, if the police walk in and the rest of us are plastered, do we get arrested? How is this legal? Where and when is it going to stop?
A friend of mine recently got arrested for violation of probation from an incident that happened back when they were a minor, but it was alcohol related. Well they hadn’t finished 2 hours of their community service which was part of their sentence, I understand they screwed up, maybe extend their community service or slap them with a hefty fine or both, but what do you think they got sentenced to? 60 days in jail!! Now while they have been in there, I have been talking to them and they let me know that anyone who gets busted for a drinking related incident will do the maximum sentence allowed. There are felons being allowed to leave early because the jails are so over crowded, yet anyone who got popped for drinking and driving is sitting there doing hard time. Maybe a second or third offender I could understand, but first time offenders? Does this seem right? Sure allow the felons, drug dealers, robbers or hookers back out on the street, but make sure that you keep those damn drunks behind bars!?!
I’m getting fed up with this system we have, take me away from all this madness and just let me have a few drinks and not worry about getting in trouble for it. Maybe allow the kids to be able to drink earlier so once they come of age they don’t feel the need to get as drunk as possible for their first few months of being 21. Or maybe give us a way to get home with out being harassed by the cops just because we are stumbling. That happened to another friend of mine last week. He had walked up to the bar planning on spending some time there and tying one on which he accomplished. Walking home (he only lives two blocks from our hangout) he had a police officer pull up to him and ask him why he was stumbling. Telling the cop he was doing what he thought was right and walking rather than getting behind the wheel, the cop told him he could bust him for public drunkenness? Why not pat him on the back and say hey buddy thanks, need a ride home? I will say that after talking with the police, they did offer him a ride. It just pisses me off that had to give him a hard time to begin with.
If MADD is so worried about these drunk drivers, why aren’t they waiting outside the bars with vehicles to help them home? I hear there are patrols that MADD has where volunteers drive around on the weekends looking for people drinking and driving, why the hell are you not waiting outside the bars and making sure they don’t get in the vehicles in the first place. Once they get in that vehicle, its too late. If you are so worried about drinking and driving, offer them a ride home. Charge them for it and make some money so you don’t have to always be asking for donations to help the cause. I was approached by some guy a few weeks back asking if the bar that I work at would like to sponsor a hole in their golf outing. When I asked what golf outing it was, they said the DARE programs annual outing. Isn’t this like asking an illegal alien if they would like to donate to the NSA, or a person sitting in jail if they would like to donate to their local police department who just put them there? They don’t care where the money is coming from, as long as they get money.
Let’s get right down to the nitty-gritty, that’s what this is all about – MONEY. If they can bust a crack head for dealing drugs, are they really going to get anything out of him/her? NO, but if they bust you and me, the average blue/white collar citizen, who needs a drivers license to get back and forth to work and pay or taxes, then they know they can slap us with fines that will make our lives hell for the next few years. Sobriety court, JAMS, community service, court fines, increased insurance rates, lawyers fees and paying to stay out of jail, because you know that if you do jail time, you have to pay them to stay there; that’s what this is all about. Let the crack head, hooker out of jail, we all know she doesn’t have any money to begin with; she is just a burden to the system, but make sure that this white collar person that just happened to be young and stupid and make a mistake pay dearly to keep this jail system afloat.
Maybe Mexico isn’t looking too bad after all. I know this legal system of ours is starting to become such a burden on the working class that maybe we should be spending our money elsewhere. Members of Congress can hit a concrete pylon while drunk, and be driven home with no consequences, but you and I leave the bar after three beers and plan on paying for it for the rest of your life.
Scott Garner
scott@stldmag.com
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