BAR?

Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said Wednesday. The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commission’s Carolyn Beck.

Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkenness, Beck said. The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car.

Not only do we have the standard violation of tossing out the distinction between public state property & a private establishment, on top of the obvious absurdity of arresting people for being drunk in a place designed for that purpose, we have people being assumed guilty. Not even assumed guilty until proven innocent, just plain assumed GUILTY. You drunk? Then they assume you’re going to try to drive home.

Suppose someone is drunk at a bar that’s only a few doors down from where they live? Then what? I’ve been to places where people live so close to their favorite drinking hole that they just walk there & back, so there’s no chance whatsoever of them driving drunk from there, what do you say to those people?

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