You can still get drunk. As long as you’re not poor. Or black.

July 6, 2006

Now, I don’t like drunk homeless people (my experience at Wayne State University…) any more than the next person. They smell funny - because they poo in their own trousers, they don’t bathe, they carry communicable diseases and ticks and lice and shit… But it seems to me that any problem posed by these people ought to be a property rights issue. Store owners want the bums off the curb - call the cops. Neighborhoods want the drunks off their block - call the cops. Just because your tax base isn’t big enough (or the cops are too busy being visible in high-rent locales) to adequately fund the local police is not reason enough to enact legislation to do what the police can’t or won’t take care of. The Seattle/Tacoma area is apparently considering zoning requirements aimed at eliminating drunk homeless people. Or at least, the booze that prefer:

The state Liquor Control Board tonight will hold a public hearing on a request by Seattle to designate more than six square miles of the city a mandatory “alcohol-impact area” (AIA).

Within the AIA boundaries R12; including downtown, Belltown, Capitol Hill, the Chinatown International District, Central Area and University District R12; grocers would be prohibited from selling 34 brands of beer, malt liquor and fortified wines, from Olde English 800 and Pabst Ice to Night Train Express.

Arbitrary, stereotypical definitions of harmful booze ensue: cheap, and high gravity are now off limits! Because nobody ever got shit-canned from drinking snapple with vodka in it. College students are boned. But, people like me who live there come away unscathed - it’s not very often that I get a craving for Night Train malt liquor. Plus, my tastes and pocketbook are able to afford me a good number of high-alcohol, refined beers, like most of the Belgian abbey ales, or the German dubbels, etc. At $9.99 for a liter of Gulden Draak (10.5%) I suppose its out of reach for your run of the mill homeless drunk….

“Honestly, we ran some people out,” said Tacoma Police Officer Greg Hopkins, a 27-year veteran who is the community liaison to the Hilltop neighborhood. Unable to get their usual drink, many homeless alcoholics — and others who used to drink on the streets — moved elsewhere.

Whenver I hear about people being “run out of town,” I remember the rampage that Sly unleashed on that tiny Montana village in the original Rambo.

Oh, and it also reminds me of the Simpsons episode 5F09 where Homer becomes Sanitation Commissioner - and after spending his annual budget on amphibious trucks and self-cleaning uniforms, in one day, he decides to push his problems under the proverbial rug - burying all of Springfields garbage under the town, and then “moving” the town house by house a few miles away when the garbage resurfaces…

The alcohol rules, imposed in 2002, were not the only reason Hilltop rebounded. Residents organized regular trash cleanups and set up card tables on street corners to play cribbage and ward off drug dealers.

The strategy brought some relief to Hilltop, but some of the problems with homeless encampments and public drinking migrated to Tacoma’s Eastside. Neighbors there are talking about asking for their own AIA.

I’ll spare you the cliché libertarian “regulation-begets-more-regulation” rant at this point, I think you understand where this is probably headed. It’s a pretty bogus form of neo-prohibition, a very specific prohibition. Needless to say, as with just about any ad hoc ban of this nature (see the recent spate of smoking bans), businesses aren’t exactly looking forward to the proposal.

The proposed ban on many beers and wines worries owners of small convenience stores, who fear they’ll be driven out of business.

“I don’t know what kind of products we are going to sell,” said Elias Kemaw, who opened his market in the Central Area five years ago. “There is no way anyone comes to my convenience store and buys the rest of the stuff I have without this beer and wine.”

The seen and the unseen… Hell, who needs eminent domain when you can legislate businesses into bankruptcy under the suspect reasoning known as the “common good” or the “neighborhood values.” Who gives a shit about the people who are risky enough as entrepreneurs to take chances on your failing neighborhoods in an attempt to live the American Dream? Just put them under - they won’t be able to start anew, but then, they won’t be your problem anymore, will they? Plus, you’ll get more tax revenue (the better to expand our power with) after the properties are sold to developers.

Seattle officials acknowledge the AIA could push some public drinking to other neighborhoods. But they believe no single neighborhood would be likely to attract a large concentration of homeless alcoholics.

Touching. Drunk homeless people are not the cause of the problem - they are symptomatic, to a large degree, of other societal ills. The absolute coup de grâce for any statist - recognize that your measures can’t possibly hope to solve the underlying problem. And then enact policies, the goal of which is to disburse said problem more evenly so that its burden is borne by a broader population and it looks and feels like you’ve accomplished something.

You can still get drunk. As long as you’re not poor. Or black.

July 6, 2006

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