Banning pub crawls?

[The Straight Story]

It soon may be illegal to drink and crawl.

A Manhattan community board is mulling a ban on pub crawls, those nights of revelry in which organized groups stumble from bar to bar and imbibe at great discounts.

The Internet and social networking have tripled the size of many of the pub crawls, said Toni Carlina, district manager of CB6, which covers 14th to 59th streets between the East River and Lexington Avenue.

"Nobody wants to prevent people from having a good time, but they must be considerate of the neighborhood," she said.

Following a St. Patrick's Day pub crawl, which enticed thousands of drunken, sometimes underage partygoers to the neighborhood for $1 drafts, board members were prompted to move ahead with a possible ban, Carlina said.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/closing_time_for_these_crawlers_oaxqVgBJc9GXGklNctJCTN

[Cleita]

1. St. Patrick's day says it right there.

Having worked the bar for eight consecutive St. Paddy's days, I can honestly say this is amateur night. I believe banning pub crawls on that day and New Year's Eve could be in the interest of the community. Otherwise, no.

[panader0]

2. The closest bar around here is 10 miles away

Too far to crawl, won't drive after drinking. so I'm SOL.
A friend from Holland told me of skating from bar to bar in the winter. He said the cold and the exercise sobered him up for the next bar.

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. "the cold and the exercise sobered him up"

Ah, science!

:eyes:

He was also heard to say, "No, really, I'm fine."

[GodlessBiker]

3. They're going to make it illegal to leave one bar and go to another?

How cockamamie can you get?

[Angry Dragon]

5. Nanny state

[RagAss]

6. Soon New York will ban shitting in a bowl !

[Historic NY]

9. You haven't heard?

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. While I'm sure this is not the right solution

I suspect many people here would change their tune if they had 2000 people every Saturday pissing and puking on the sidewalks in front of their house, fighting on the streets, stealing shit out of stores, and generally screaming and yelling until four in the morning. I think some people here have a hard time grokking what nightlife looks like in Manhattan. It's tens of thousands of people milling about, many not from these neighborhoods, and most not considering any consequences. If you haven't spent a good deal of time in New York (and I don't mean four days here and there in the Midtown tourist district, which may as well be anywhere), I'm not sure you can really wrap your head around what some of these streets look like on Sunday mornings around 4:15.

[aquart]

10. Living on a bar street is a form of Hell. Having a business there...

Oh, it's lovely coming in Monday and having to clean the dried piss and shit from Saturday night off your gates and your windows and your door. Just lovely. I invite you all to try it.

[niyad]

21. I used to live right behind a very popular bar. at closing time, I would amuse myself by watching

out a window as a drunk would relieve himself on one of the elms, and yelling just as he had pulled his pants down.

yes, low humour, but it was my own amusement.

[aquart]

23. And it pleases me.

[GodlessBiker]

12. I lived in Manhattan for 20 years. If you decide to live on 2nd Avenue, for example, you assume ...

the risk of a lot of drunken people along that swath of the Avenue on which many bars are located.

Indeed, the whole point of living in Manhattan, or one of the main points, is because the bars, clubs, and nightlife you want to go to are right down the street. That's what makes Manhattan Manhattan. No need to drive anywhere and risk a DWI.

I see you point, it can get messy. But it's like asking people in the suburbs to get rid of fresh air and grass. You kind of know what you're getting into when you move there.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

13. In Dallas this lead to barkingdogs.org

and some of the best internet videos ever posted

[Cleita]

14. Again, as I said, amateurs. Genuine imbibers, I mean

people who drink regularly socially, even though they may or may not be alcoholics or drunks, do not piss and puke all over the place. When they find themselves getting close to that state, they go home or somewhere they can get sick in private.

[alcibiades_mystery]

20. This is certainly true, but amateur night isn't just St. Paddy's in Manhattan

It's every night. It's a right of passage for teenagers and just-out-of-colleges to be shitface drunk on the streets of Manhattan. I did it, and so did everyone I know. I'm very much a social drinker, and would sooner quit drinking than puke on a Manhattan sidewalk, believe me. But when I was 17? Different story altogether. Now multiply that by the hundreds of thousands in this category from Riverhead to Teaneck, you have quite the amateur nights on your hands. Every friggin' weekend. St. Paddy's is just a special case of stupid. The conditions I described are the regular state of affairs. (Yes, I've also been to St. Paddy's in Manhattan, though we usually just stayed local in Queens).

[NYC_SKP]

8. Just shut the fuckin island down and reopen when it's fully Disneyized. FFS.

I'm glad I lived there when Time Square was scary and the subways were filthy and you could smoke wherever the fuck you wanted to and it didn't look like any other place in the world.

Fuckin shit.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

15. Grew up there... Understand fully your sentiments...

Heck, "stand clear of the closing doors" on the subway is now legible. Weird

The pedestrian mall in times square still makes me wonder what city I'm in when I go to visit my parents... And there's a "best buy" in columbus circle?

:shrug:

[midnight]

11. I'm not a pub crawler, but the reason of siting drunkenness,that results from these

working class events vs the country club drunkenness need equal redress... The local country club drunkards need to be cut off after two drinks... I refuse to drive by the local country club for fear of those high ended drunks slamming into me.... O and don't get me started about their loud party music.... Some elevator music of long ago times.... But you know the country club drunkenness will never be banned..... And those high end drinkers will not be considerate of others either.... But my attitude is that these folks who pour all their money into the community will hopefully be contributing to the tax base... Maybe Manhattan might want to think about that.

[Cleita]

16. It seems those country club drunks could afford to hire

a car. Maybe a law needs to be passed demanding it. Other than that, they can do to their liver what they will as long as no one else has to get hurt by them.

[Historic NY]

17. It is actually illegal under NY State ABC Law to have, all you can drink or pay one price.

Sec 177-a a,b,c It also pertains to these organized or promoted crawls.

[hedgehog]

18. Get the State Liquor Authority down on bartenders who serve

obviously intoxicated people. Pull a license or two, and the problem goes away.


Yes, liquor sales will drop. What is the revenue compared to the cost of policing brawls, cleaning up urine, feces and vomit, damage to real estate values, etc?

[Cleita]

19. Yeah, sure.

I once knew a cop when I was a bartender. I challenged him to tell me which of my customers whom I served was already drunk when I served them and who wasn't because I had hard time doing it. After an evening of watching me bartending he admitted he couldn't either. He said at least the police had access to the means of determining drunkeness before they made charges and bartenders don't. So let's keep fining and accusing the working class for doing their job and not giving them the tools to do it with. I do not know of any bartender who serves obviously drunk patrons.

[99th_Monkey]

22. Nah! I'm a teabagger on this issue. Keep Gov't out of regulating my life please.. ~nt