I love bars. I don't care if I'm with friends or on my own, whether it's AM or PM, whether I'm in front or behind the bar, I'm usually pretty comfortable. Sadly though I've never been able to find a bar I felt comfortable enough to call a home away from home. At the moment I'm in a small north-western English town, the only bars with any variety and reasonable prices are chain bars with fucking books on the wall. Back in Belfast, there were some awesome snug little bars, however with an average price of £3.30/pint, it would be hard to afford becoming a regular there. Over the past summer I worked as a barman on a holiday Island in Greece, that was pretty awesome and I managed to get drunk for 8hours a night ever night for free. The only thing I don't like in a bar is loud fucking music, especially if it's top 40 shit. I guess people drink more if they can't talk to each other but it's fucking annoying.
The other ones are minor nuisances but understandable. This one I just don't get. The whole beauty of going out in New York is that you DON'T have to use a car! No DD! You can get drunk and not have to hide your car keys from yourself! Why would anyone want to take a car?
Simple. Buy a RV. Anywhere you park is your home*. Also, you can legally park at any Wal-Mart overnight, no questions asked**. Besides, if cops see you in a $50K RV, they'll assume you're white enough to not fuck with you. *made that up ** that part is true
Odds are if you can afford the $50k RV, you can afford the round trip cab fare in the first place. There... saved you $49,500.
It is all about liability and the station/officer saving face. My friend is a police officer* and explained that they put pressure on officers to charge for DUIs instead of letting them go or even having the person's friend pick them up. The officers can't say that you didn't drive drunk to the spot you are sleeping at or that you won't drive off five minutes later (or having a friend drop you back off at your car later while you're still drunk etc). He wasn't totally clear on the legal liabilities cops have but just think how socially/politically disastrous for a police station if the public found out an officer let someone sleep it off who then in turn plowed into a car and killed a few people. *and incidentally owned the truck I rolled and was the star witness at my DUI trial.
Have we met? Seriously, that is a brutally accurate description of the place. Didn't mean to hit a nerve. How does everyone feel about hitting strip clubs? The older I get, the dumber it seems.
So having the potential to commit a crime is an arrestable offense now?? I guess they should roll up to the local park and arrest everyone carrying a baseball bat, after all they could potentially use it later to bludgeon someone to death.
There are two bars I consistently go to when I go out. The first is the bar where I occasionally pick up bartending shifts when they're short, the second is the strip club. At the bar, I just take a seat in my friend's well and get fed beers and the occasional shot throughout the night. If they need help with anything, door guy needs to piss, glasses need to be cleaned or rounded up, I do it for them. It keeps them from having to have an 11 PM barback on nights when I'm in town, so the owner saves money and the bartenders and door guys make more. I usually sit for a while until an acquaintance comes up to me and suggests we go to random other bar. The strip club is a bit more interesting. One of the girls I bartended with for a while is a bartender there, and one of the guys I hired at my old bar bartends and bounces there. So I pay no cover, and since they don't do any sort of inventory with the alcohol, I'm fed shots and beers while I'm there. One of the girls who worked at the hookah bar that was downstairs and connected to the bar I ran is now a stripper, so she usually drags me to the stage and hands me a wad of the strip club's funny money to give to strippers she likes, but only when I'm not out with my girlfriend.
I'll take a barstool at a brew pub any day of the week. If not a brew pub, at least a place that serves a nice selection of good beer. I don't drink liquor, and like to switch it up throughout the night so I'll usually have a half dozen different beers while I'm out. Good food is a must; I'm not much for greasy bar food anymore so I prefer a menu with some variety. Come to think about it, I like day drinking a whole helluva lot more, so a patio I can alternate to/fro is nice. My ideal drinking day is football Sunday: Brunch around 11:00, watch the early game (I'm on the West Coast, they start @ 10) on the patio Drink Watch the afternoon game at the bar inside Order lunch around halftime Drink Stumble home after the afternoon game (this is generally where I stop remembering stuff) Drink & make dinner Drink with dinner while watching the night game Attempt to have sex, usually this doesn't go very well Pass out Hate life on Monday
On the rare occasion that I make it up to Portland I like ending the night at a strip club. There's nothing like watching hot hipster chicks get naked on stage when you're hammered. Last time I was there I saw a stripper totally rock one of these, one of the hottest things I've seen. *edit: the hat, not the cardigan
No... it's about society's slow migration away from personal responsibility. Everyone OTHER than the person who did the deed is responsible, remember? The mere fact that a bar can be held accountable for what someone does when they drink in their establishment is fucking insane to me. I can also see the cops' justification. I mean, why wouldn't you err on the side of caution in an overly litigious world? In the end, it's not the cop, it's the law that he's following, and the fact that being a "nice" guy and cutting someone a break can come back and fuck them up later. CYA.