Monday, March 27, 2006

WAIT A MINUTE OFFICER, SHE'S GOT A DESIGNATED DRIVER

More than 2,200 people have been arrested inside bars during the past six months by agents of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC). Drunken bar patrons were arrested for public intoxication. Employees of bars and restaurants licensed to sell alcoholic beverages were arrested for being drunk on the premises. Bar employees were arrested for selling alcoholic beverages to drunken customers, a serious violation of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code. These arrests were made in an attempt to reduce the state's drunk driving problem. Texas happens to have the nation's highest rate of DWI cases.

The way the NBC Today show, the NBC Nightly News, and most of the MSNBC news shows reacted to this story, you would think that a major violation of civil rights was being committed by the TABC agents for arresting drunks inside those bars. The news correspondents, who interviewd TABC spokespersons, implied that the arrests violated the right to privacy because they were being conducted on private property, They questioned why the arrests could not have been made once the drunks had exited the premises. The arrest of drunks, who had a sober designated driver present, was a major concern expressed by the correspondents.

TABC should be commended, rather than criticized, for cracking down on drunks inside drinking establishements, and for arresting those who continue to serve them alcoholic beverages. Because places that are licensed to serve alcoholic beverages are open to the general public, the laws of Texas and most other states recognize them as public places. Accordingly, bar patrons are legally excluded from any expectation of privacy. In Texas, all employees of licensed drinking establishments are required to attend a state-run training program which is designed to prevent the serving of alcoholic beverages to persons who appear to be intoxicated. Thus, there can be no excuse for drunks to be served in bars or restaurants.

How did the TABC agents make those arrests? Sometimes they were made by undercover officers, sometimes by agents conducting their routine bar checks. Actually, TABC has always arrested drunks in bars and those who served them. It is only the revelation that there have been more than 2,200 such arrests within the past six months that has led to this brouhaha.

And, how did those terrible TABC agents conduct those arrests? Well for starters, only those persons who appeared to be so drunk that they constituted a danger to themselves or others, were arrested. And, not every drunk was taken to jail. In some cases, they were cited for public intoxication and released to a reponsible party, such as a sober designated driver. Those who served the drunks were also arrested. Some would ask, why arrest - a citation is considered an arrest - those who did have a sober designated driver on the premises? Well, in order to make a case against those who serve drunks, there has to be a drunk that was served. The arrest for public intoxication is the proof needed to convict those bar employees. And, what about those cases when the arrest of bar employees resulted in the closure of a bar because there would be no one left in charge? That's just tough!

If there is any criticism to be made, it should be of the local police agencies which shy away from conducting routine bar checks. For some reason, political or otherwise, local agencies prefer to leave the enforcent of drinking violations in bars to TABC, the state agency. To compound the problem, many drinking establishments hire off-duty police officers for security. Since these officers are usually hired and paid directly by the proprietors, rather than by their own agency, they tend to enforce only "house rules" in order to keep their off-duty jobs. It should be embarrassing as hell for a local police agency to have TABC agents enter a bar and arrest several drunks, and those who served them, when local officers did nothing about obvious law violations committed in their presence.

When I was a California law enforcement officer in the 50's and 60's, my agency conducted frequent routine bar checks, arresting drunks inside and those who served them. Often, the bars had to close on those occasions because there would be no one left in charge. There were several reasons for those bar checks. Studies have shown that many cases of domestic violence, including murders, resulted when an intoxicated spouse returned home and a fight would ensue. Most bar brawls take place because patrons have been served too much. These drunken brawls often result in aggravated assaults and, not too infrequently, in killings. And, of course, many drunks leave bars and are involved in serious automobile accidenst, although at the time, DWIs were not our main concern - the possible violence was. Finally, the suppression of prostitution in bars was accomplished through the use of frequent routine bar checks.

Again, TABC is to be commended for arresting drunks in bars and for arresting those who serve them. On the other hand, local police agencies should be condemned for not making frequent routine bar checks, which would not only reduce DWIs, but would also prevent many acts of violence. Claiming a manpower shortage is no excuse for not conducting those bar checks.

Finally, proprietors of drinking establishments, who want off-duty officers for security, should pay the police ageny for those services, and not the officers. The officers would then be assigned to these off-duty jobs and paid for this extra work, by their own agency. In this way, the proprietor could not detrmine which officers to hire or fire, and the off-duty officers could enforce all laws in their assigned establishments, and not just "house rules." Arrests of drunks in bars and those who served them, whether by off-duty officers working security or by local and state officers making bar checks, will help to reduce the rate of DWIs, murders, and other violent crimes.

No comments: