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This isn't Texas, Texan learns and hotel workers are reminded
By adamg on Tue, 05/17/2016 - 11:11am
The new Godfrey Hotel in Downtown Crossing had to send representatives to the Boston Licensing Board today to explain why a hotel guest was standing outside with a drink in his hand early one morning last month.
The guest was a Texan, and unaware that we have stricter liquor regulations that bar holding an open container of alcohol outside, hotel attorney Joseph Devlin told the board this morning. "They're allowed to do that in Texas," he said, acknowledging, "They're not allowed to do that here." Two licensing detectives spotted the man as they drove down Washington around 1:15 a.m. on April 1.
A hotel manager said that in response to the incident, all workers at the hotel bar were reminded of the rules and regulations governing the consumption of alcohol in Boston - and had to sign an acknowledgement that they were reminded. Also, the hotel put a sign up before the exit alerting guests not to carry their drinks outside.
The board decides Thursday what action, if any, to take.
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Comments
Just be glad
He wasn't dancing
That totally explains why
as I lay in bed that night, I found myself unable to sleep, with an uneasy feeling that my city was about to fall into complete and utter chaos. The madness. OH! The madness!
Well ...
This is probably considerably less stupid than the licensing board demanding that breweries put your refilled growler in a brown paper bag and staple it shut.
Agreed
but for the sake of making comparisons, I'd bet money that this wasn't the worst thing to happen in DTX that day. Possibly even at that moment.
Hopefully that statement won't get Adam in trouble for allowing gambling talk on his website.
/snark
Uhhh
Native Texan here - you haven't been able to do that for like 20 years, it's not New Orleans or something.
This story is quite
This story is quite serendipitous for me. I just got back from NOLA on Sunday, and I did enjoy being able to walk around outside there with a drink. Not sure I'd want to live there, though. I think I'd melt in July/August.
Puritanism is alive and well in Boston
Puritanism is alive and well in Boston. So much for wanting to be a modern liberal progressive welcoming city.
Because...
Because nothing says progressivism like drinking in public, and nothing says "I support progressivism" like talking about "wanting to be a modern liberal progressive welcoming city."\
The reason Boston laws are so strict...
...every hack, townie politician has a relative that was an alcoholic. So they think they have to have all these laws related to drinking.
What, if any, action to take
Priorities?
But if he was standing outside smoking a joint, thats perfectly fine.
It was extremely bizarre for
It was extremely bizarre for this lifelong Bostonian to visit New Orleans and be constantly asked if I'd like my beer "to go".
And delightful.
Indeed.
My wife's entire family is from Baton Rouge. The first time her sisters came up to visit, going to the bar was like a Farrelly Brothers movie. The utter indignation on her face when told that she couldn't take that beer with her, even if she poured it into a go cup.
The drive-through daiquiri places were a real eye opener when I went down there the first time. Sadly they are no more, unless you want to drive to Alabama.
(Sidenote: the go cup is the single greatest thing Louisiana has brought us. It is also a strict requirement for any northerner who wants to be walking around outside the streets of New Orleans in July.)
To be fair, there aren't that
To be fair, there aren't that many places in the US as a whole where you can walk around drinking or even drink alcohol in public. It's certainly not just a Northern thing.
Haven't been to central
Haven't been to central square recently?
Savannah
FWIW, you can take a drink outside in Savannah GA
The first time I saw someone take a go cup was South Beach Miami in the early 90's, which shocked this guy from the northeast. Don't know if you can still do it.
Yes, just go on and take that
Yes, just go on and take that beer to go, get in your car and kill a cyclist. Dumb, dumb, dumb. People VISIT New Orleans once per year to get crazy wasted drunk and party during Mardi Gras, but people LIVE in the greater Boston area because here people are serious and responsible adults, thanks to: top notch education, the opportunity to have a decent paying career, and it's a nice place to raise a family. You'd rather drink beer on the sidewalk? Then by all means, bye!
Obnoxious
Lifelong Bostonian here with friends nation and worldwide. You imply that NO is only a party destination where raising a family and attaining a good career isn't an option? It's assholes like you that make Boston seem so douchey at times.
Secondly in the areas where outdoor drinking of alcohol is tolerated (NO, Vegas, Savannah etc) it's assumed that the general public is responsible enough to make decisions like adults. It's our nanny state bullshit here that basically says our government thinks we need them to tell us how to live and behave.
The facts are that the
The facts are that the Northeast has significantly better education, health, jobs and is just an overall better place to live.
I did not mean to vote.
I did not mean to vote.
You are being pretentious.
What?
That's kind of a weird and retrograde argument to make. It's the same logic that led to the abolition of happy hour here, and drove the fight the insane "3 liquor licenses per chain" law: if you do ANYTHING to make drinking easier, people are going to go do crazy things, and won't someone please think of the children?
If you tell someone he can't bring his beer outside with him, he's not going to say "The scales have fallen from my eyes! No further intoxicating liquors shall pass these lips!" and dump the drink before getting behind the wheel. He's going to drink the rest of it all at once, put the empty glass down, and then go do whatever he was going to do in the first place. Meanwhile, we get to pay for vice cops to write tickets for someone carrying an open container outside, AND we get to pay to haul the bar in front of the licensing board.
another anon
The results of our better education, job market, public services, and history are anything but retrograde compared to a lot of things and standards.
Por que no los dos?
Walking around with a beer in your hand is not the cause of drunk driving (conversely drunk driving is not the effect of allowing public drinking). Public drinking isn't even the cause of people getting "crazy wasted drunk" in New Orleans.
Furthermore, being a "serious and responsible adult" has no causality relationship with public drinking in either direction either.
I'd rather drink a beer on the sidewalk AND be a serious and responsible adult living in MA where we once in awhile get crazy wasted drunk like St. Patrick's Day as long as we remain responsible for our actions afterwards like refusing to drive anywhere until we're sober again. All of these things are not mutually exclusive at all.
Then cite the person who was actually drinking
on the sidewalk. But it's time to lose this idiotic and pointless nonsense of citing the establishment for the actions of an alleged adult individual. THAT's the real issue here, the utter waste of time and resources by the Licensing Board and their ":well, the establishment must be responsible somehow, even if the act was committed by a grown adult."
Wellll...
I know I'm usually right there with you on this one. I think far too many things go before the Licensing Board when it's clearly more of a police matter and has nothing to do with the location. For example, guy leaves a bar, sees his baby mama in line to get in and starts slapping her around for leaving his kid home with her aunt. This is not the bar's fault. They still get rung up.
That's dumb.
A patron leaves a bar with his drink in hand? That's one I think the bar has to answer for, even if the response to the answer is "ok, we believe you. You couldn't have stopped him". Why, when I'm usually on the same side you're on with this argument? Because tell me what the difference is in the following two situations:
1) Bar tells patron that they can go drink on the sidewalk while they smoke a cigarette. Cop walks up and sees patron outside drinking. Cop asks manager what is going on. Manager says "We didn't tell him he could be out there".
2) Bar doesn't tell patron anything. Patron thinks they can drink outside. Cop walks up and sees patron outside drinking. Cop asks manager what is going on. Manager says "We didn't tell him he could be out there".
The only difference is whether the patron calls out the manager in the first situation or not. There's just too much room for the cop and the city to not know if the establishment was shirking the laws or not for the convenience of their patrons. If a guy goes outside and gets his gun and comes back and shoots someone exiting the bar later, then nobody's going to suggest the "bar made him do it" or the "bar said he could do it". Something like wandering outside the bar with your drink isn't something you can determine whether the bar had a hand in on arriving on scene.
So, for some of the "violations" bars get that have nothing to do with the bar and everything to do with the patron, I agree that ringing up the bar is dumb and time-wasting and puritanical. However, for violations such as how and where alcohol has been served and been allowed to go (literally the bar's business to know about), I think the bar has to answer for mistakes being made.
EDIT: Of course, the obvious answer is to just make public drinking legal and that absolves the bar of this problem too.
You forgot
3) Patron puts a bottle of beer in his coat pocket and exits the bar, only to drink it outside while smoking a cigarette around the corner from the bar.
We are very uptight regarding alcohol
in Boston, in MA, in New England, in Texas, in the entire U.S., minus a tiny number of places like New Orleans. I believe this can be partly explained a particular type of Protestantism created by John Calvin, that played a defining role in the British settlement of America, that exists down to this very day. It's also obvious among radicals on the far left and far right.
New York City
just decriminalized drinking in public. You can still get a fine, but no arrest or record unless it's an actual public safety issue.
Who cares about John Calvin.
Who cares about John Calvin. You do not know any alcoholics?
What does that have to do with anything?
Yes, alcoholism is serious. But saying strict alcohol laws protect against alcoholism is like saying drugs being illegal protects against addiction. If someone has an addiction to anything, they're going to find a way if they want something bad enough. And just to hammer it home: According to CDC data that broke prevalence of binge drinking amongst adults into 3 tiers, MA ranks in the top tier. Granted it ranked in the bottom tier of "Intensity," that's still 6.3-7 drinks "per occasion" by binge drinkers.
Meanwhile states like NY and California, who have relatively lax laws on the sale and purchase of alcohol and even the dreaded happy hour, rank in the bottom tier for both.
So I guess our laws aren't working. Maybe we should go back to prohibition?
If you're trying to fight alcoholism, recovery programs should be the primary focus, not outdated, arbitrary laws.