According to this article, Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents and Irving police swept through 36 Irving bars and arrested about 30 people on charges of public intoxication. Agency representatives say the move came as a proactive measure to curtail drunken driving.

To me, this was the most unbelievable part:


My questions for debate are pretty simple:

Did the Texas authorities got too far?

Are these arrests a violation of the bar patron's civil rights?

I don't believe the government should arrest people for potential actions. Being drunk (as long as alcohol is legal) should not be a crime, just as being stupid should not be a crime.

That said, assaulting someone, disrupting the peace and other actions should be prosecuted.

Did the Texas authorities got too far?

I think they did. The fact that there are drunk people in bars should surprise only government officials, apparently. It is what those people do after leaving the bar that law enforcement should be concerned with.

Are these arrests a violation of the bar patron's civil rights?

I believe proactive arrests are against the spirit of our freedoms, although I do not know if there are any specific rights violated by what the authorities did here (there is a law against public intoxication, for example, so technically these people were breaking the law).

lets see. how about we use some good ole fashioned texas GOP logic here.
These people were either drunk or clearly plotting to get drunk. There are unconfirmed reports that there was indeed alcohol on the premises. Where this "alcohol" -- a well know mass produced intoxicant -- is at this point unknown. Unconfirmed reports have led to the conclusion that it was moved across the border into New Mexico.
The lawmen of texas clearly had NO CHOICE but to launch a pre-emptive strike against these rabble rousers and bring them to justice.
Can we as a society tolerate drunkeness--NO
For before you know it it leads to loud off key renditions of Radar Love and really poorly performed air guitar.
Once this sort of thing is allowed to happen it could very well spread and lead to anarchy--or at least revelry.

Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents and Irving police clearly were operating on some very secure information whose sources cannot be revealed without leading to the destruction of invaluable PolInt.
Several patrons have been renditioned to Oklahoma where they will be forced to hear bluegrass done on creaky banjos.

We simply cannot allow this sort of behavior to be condoned and i think the response of just give and raise the white flag of surrender would give the absolute WRONG signal to bootleggers all over the lower 48. before you know it revenuers will once again have to be afraid of double barrel responses to their patriotic demands of tax relief for government programs and Alaskan and Mississippian pork barrel projects.
Not in MY America

Only by bringing sobriety to those states where it is not the moral standard can we hope to make this a world safe for democracy.

God bless America

It must be a cold day in hell. I agree with Amlord.



My beloved Texas should adopt a new state nickname “The Preemption State.” From the ranks of this great state came a preemptive war in Iraq and now we seemingly want to apply the same prescription to public drunkenness, imbibing or whatever.

It there is an after life, Carry A. Nation is probably smiling from atop one of the rain clouds above Tejas.

I think you will get pretty general agreement from the Left and Right here. This seems like grotesque overkill. Do the Irving police truly have nothing else to concern themselves with? Does the TABC have so much time on their hands that they can go around making sure that everyone in the state "drinks responsibly?"

The really scary part is that the state of Texas could make a good case that they have the legal right (but not the moral right) to do this. The law being enforced here seems to make it a crime to be intoxicated anywhere but in the privacy of your own home. This is a stupid and evil law, but I would be willing to bet that it would stand up in court if challenged.

I'm not sure even that is allowed:

Irving: Election to allow beer and wine sales in convenience stores. Sixty-three percent of voters cast their ballots against allowing the sale of beer and wine for off-site consumption. Beer and wine are sold by the glass within the city limits. -Fort Worth Star Telegram, Sept. 12, 2004.

I've lived in dry counties in Texas before. In order to buy a glass of wine (or bottle, or whatever) in those places, I would have had to sign a contract with personal information. I never wanted the wine that badly. I always envisioned it coming back to bite me if I were in a car accident. See! She buys alcohol! She is clearly at fault! Or maybe it would effect my insurance rates...Some conspiracies I do believe in.

The votership doesn't seem to want folks to be able to drink in their city. I think these arrests are wrong, obviously. If they wish to discourage drinking in bars, the bars shouldn't be there to begin with...let them serve orange juice.

Is this unAmerican? Jah!

"Good wine is a necessity of life" - Thomas Jefferson

My question really is, how did they decide who to arrest??? Did they walk around with a breathalyzer (sp?) and make everyone in a bar blow?

Being a big proponent of happy hours (no, we don't have kids yet!), I'll go have a couple of beers w/ buddies or the little lady during the week or on the weekend. I can only imagine the legal battle that would insue if I got picked up.

To the drunk driving notion, do they realize how many cabs are in the Dallas area? (Irving is a suburb of Dallas...) I can't say that I go out on any given day and don't see cabs.

Finally, where is the ACLU on this one??? Come on... this could be big. Did the TABC hit bars where they knew people had previous DWI convictions? Why couldn't they just sit local police in the parking lots and stop people who drove out?

I hope and pray that the ACLU steps in and begins a class action... if not, I suppose I wouldn't be surprised....

I just found this one. Apparently this isn't restricted to Texas, but happens in my current state of Virginia as well!



I was going to use the argument that one cannot be accused of public drunkenness in a private establishment, but that shoots down that argument. Honestly, I'm not sure there is a constitutional grounds here.

From my perspective this is pure insanity.

Can it actually be true, that police are allowed to ticket people if they have an alcohol level higher than 0.08? I thought prohibition was over.

Im certainly glad public intoxication is not a crime in Denmark - I could have been arrested many many times, and so could about every other person I know, including almost everybody in my, after Danish standards, very normal family. It should only be a crime if the intoxication is combined with disorderly conduct or driving and such.

If people are not otherwise breaking any laws, I don't see what right the government has to regulate the amount of legal alchohol you choose to consume in your free time. "Proactive" policing to prevent "future" crimes is a staplemark of a fascist policestate (and no, I am not saying the US is that yet, but that is what things like this can and will lead to if left unchecked).

Did the Texas authorities got too far?
Yes, they did, inasmuch as they violated longstanding tradition and social understanding.

Are these arrests a violation of the bar patron's civil rights?
No, they aren't according to current understanding of our civil rights. Texas law makes public intoxication illegal. Bars are clearly public spaces, at least as far as civil rights laws are concerned. If a state can make smoking in a bar illegal, it can certainly make being smashed in a bar illegal. Mind you, I consider property rights to be part and parcel of our civil rights, and consider both this application of "public intoxication" and smoking restrictions applied to privately owned businesses to be contrary to our civil rights.

Did the Texas authorities got too far?

Yes - but coming from a nation that has a strange love-hate relationship with alcohol, I would say that, wouldn't I?

Are these arrests a violation of the bar patron's civil rights?

Apparently under Texas law, and some other states, this is not the case.

But my gut feel is that "public intoxication" is in itself too tight a law. By all means have laws governing what one can or cannot do under the influence of alcohol.

Here in the UK the comparable offence is "drunk and disorderly conduct". While it would technically be legal to arrest and charge someone who was merely drunk, the police only ever really take notice of the "disorderly" part.

What IS against the law (and should be enforced more I think*) is for bar staff to serve alcohol to anyone who is clearly already drunk. Is there anything comparable in Texas?

*Well, I do now, while I'm sober. I daresay that I'll be perfectly happy to continue to be served after I've passed the legal blood alcohol limit for driving this weekend (despite travelling to & from the pub on foot).

The problem with laws on drink, just as with laws on drugs, is that being drunk (or stoned or high or whatever) is FUN for most of the people who do it most of the time - only a minority of users of such substances are ever truly addicted.

So any laws that curb people's substance use (as distinct from abuse) in circumstances where no harm is done to third parties arguably infringe the civil liberties of those whose actions are outlawed. Why is it illegal to smoke cannabis in one's own home? Or take cocaine at a party? But legal to drink at least some alcohol in Texas - a state not widely celebrated for their tolerance of insobriety even before this latest story?

Oh, and please don't infer from this that I have all the answers, or that I'm a drug abuser (the only one I've taken more than a few times is booze. To be honest, I don't much like any of the others I've tried, legal or not).

Another day, more misconceptions about the ACLU. The ACLU does not "just step in and begin a class action suit" someone has to request their assistance through a local chapter and for it to be a class action suit it has to be a lot of somebody's.

So before you start up the ACLU bashing it pays to understand how they work and their capabilities. They aren't the equivalent of Batman, heading out to combat evil wherever it lives or something.

Will these people in Irving seek help from the ACLU? I don't know, but if they have the same attitudes about them as some on this site I doubt they will and then they'll probably blame them for not championing them.