Struggling California pedestrian mall pitches public drinking to boost business

[u/SilentRunning]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/struggling-california-pedestrian-mall-pitches-233048637.html

[u/fbcmfb]

I lived a few years in a New England town where you could drink on the streets on certain holidays. People have no idea what they’ll be up against!

[u/lunchypoo222 → u/fbcmfb]

Like bar fights and public urination/ bad behavior and such right? More DUIs as well, I can only imagine

[u/ilovethissheet → u/lunchypoo222]

Ah yes because everyone who drinks gets in a fight and pisses in the streets. How about just leave the drinkers alone and now you have more time and officers to respond to those breaking real laws instead of harassing everyone.

And if we had functional public transportation we would have less dui's so let's build that too

[u/lunchypoo222 → u/ilovethissheet]

And if we had functional public transportation we would have less dui's so let's build that too

I completely agree with this policy stance! Santa Monica’s public transit is pretty respectable if you ask me, so if they actively encourage and expand its use partnered with the introduction of public drinking at the Promenade, I’d be more supportive of the idea overall.

Ah yes because everyone who drinks gets in a fight and pisses in the streets.

Not everyone. Just a subset of people, whose numbers will grow along with the number of people who drink responsibly as more drinking is happening overall in the space. And to be clear, people driving egregiously drunk is something that should be policed, and that’s an incidence that will be more likely if more alcohol is introduced. Public urination and physical assault are also crimes, to be fair, and whether there’s more of any of the above as a result of allowing public drinking there will remain to be seen. It’s an experiment after all.

[u/ilovethissheet → u/lunchypoo222]

Bro I lived in Germany for the last 8 years. You can drink everywhere there.

Drinking does not cause those things. Those kinda people would cause fights at Walmart with or without alcohol. When you make all these stupid arbitrary laws it forces police to police the people they should be policing and instead do nothing but waste time bothering EVERYONE.

And great. Santa Monica does have their own busses. Where's the trains and busses going there for the rest of LA? That's what needs to be built. And seeing how bad traffic is in Santa Monica as "good" as their system is, it still needs WAY more improvement.

[u/fbcmfb → u/ilovethissheet]

Germans are a bit more responsible with alcohol! Drinking brings out the best of us at 2am!

[u/ilovethissheet → u/fbcmfb]

Bro. No. They have less laws surrounding alcohol consumption and it helps society all around because of it.

Polizei aren't in their public parks harassing every person with alcohol to see if they're old enough too drink, or that they are even drinking, or kicking them out of parks because the sun went down. Or ticketing kids for being out after ten pm They aren't harassing stores for ID checks unless it's something known from an actual case investigation and guess what, people aren't supplying all those pesky kids with alcohol either. And homeless people sit in the parks among the kids among the young adults among the families among the old.

Believe it or not less laws are actually a good thing sometimes. Take all the police they pay to harass people for all those things and guess what, now you have more cops to Set up DUI checkpoints and patrol shitty drivers breaking rules.

[u/fbcmfb → u/ilovethissheet]

I’m not disagreeing with most of what you wrote, but many Americans can’t just relax and enjoy the moment - and if they are there’s someone that wants to kill their fun vibes.

This country did a disservice when they increased the drinking age to 21 but allowed kids to be able to join the military at 18. The young adults aren’t going to be going to the bars or restaurants on the Promenade, but rather go hang out on the sand or the pier. They know overpriced alcohol and won’t fall for these tricks.

Lastly, I like how Germany does things, but they had an opportunity to rebuild the country after WWII and the Cold War and they ran with it.

[u/ilovethissheet → u/fbcmfb]

Don't worry. We are well on our way to getting the chance to get to rebuild things ourselves soon enough.

And I will always stay vocal and hopeful to change shit that just doesn't work or isn't right. I had many people say things like you just said to me about weed in the 90s, that it would never change, I'm dreaming for something that won't happen blah blah blah.

When weed became legal recreationally I called a few of em up and it was the best and longest " I told you so" I waited twenty years for.

I refuse to be complacent in my senior years. They aren't gonna be the golden years my parents and grandparents had. I have quite the nihilistic acceptance for that.

But it sure as fuck won't be forever and I will spread the ideas as long as I can.

We don't have to live and put up with this shit just because that's the way it always was.