Re: Driven to drink

1

This is MS Explorer's time to shine.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 6:37 AM
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I'm pretty sure that would be illegal six different ways in Pennsylvania, but maybe no one has tried it. During covid, there was a special law (since repealed) that let restaurants sell mixed drinks for take out. People (not sure which ones) were insistent that the law end quickly.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 6:40 AM
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I don't think I've ever had a blender drink. I've had margaritas, but only the kind with a drink served with ice cubes.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 6:48 AM
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4

EDGE! IT'S EDGE! EDGE EDGE EDGE EDGE!


Posted by: OPINIONATED MS MARKETING DEPARTMENT | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 6:51 AM
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Whatever. Give me back free Solitaire you bastard.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 6:56 AM
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And make it possible to get copilot to fuck off.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 7:01 AM
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ABOVE OUR PAY GRADE! VERY SORRY! WE FEEL YOU!


Posted by: OPINIONATED MS MARKETING DEPARTMENT | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 7:04 AM
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6: We were just offered the opportunity to try Copilot, and I'm trying to figure out how to block it as much as possible.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 7:12 AM
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Okay, but what happens when someone--drunk and frozen daiquiri in hand--runs over a pedestrian? And the estate of said pedestrian sues the drive thru under a theory of dram shop liability. Shouldn't that be the end of this?


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 7:35 AM
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When a tree falls in the middle of the woods, does it sue a right-thinking young business owner? Such is the mystery of the universe.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 7:41 AM
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People do sue regular bars when there is a drunk driving death. I don't know how different this would be. My guess is that the business is insured against that kind of suit and paying a reasonable premium.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 8:02 AM
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Going solely by what is reported in the local paper, they don't expect a liquor seller to make inferences about future behavior. Where you get in trouble is selling more to someone who is already visibly drunk.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 8:04 AM
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What's next, expecting gun shops not to sell guns to angry Nazis? Grow up, commie.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 8:14 AM
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America is full of bars that are inaccessible except by car, many in places where taking a taxi home isn't even a theoretical option.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 8:18 AM
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In defense of the rest of New England, we are burdened with the Mississippi of the North (NH), the vast expanse of what my brother's Mainer partner used to refer as "incest country" (anywhere in the state more than 15 miles inland), and millions of Massholes reaffirming their massholery in rotaries.


Posted by: No Longer Middle Aged Man | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 8:21 AM
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Are you from Vermont?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 8:48 AM
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This may have been complete BS, but back when I was a Texan (late 70s/early 80s) my understanding was that the combo of Texas A&Ms strict campus rules and on alcohol and Texas' open container laws led to A&M students driving around and drinking to get inebriated before con campus parties.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 9:07 AM
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That was what we did in high school.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 9:08 AM
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The one time I was caught with alcohol in a dorm, it was the last day of the year and they did nothing but confiscate the beer that was in open sight.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 9:16 AM
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I worried that a drive-thru would be illegal, so I went to city hall to find out. What I found was that no business was selling just frozen alcoholic drinks--drive-thru or otherwise. My store would be the first of its kind.
My concept fell somewhere between a package liquor store and a bar, but it was neither. When I approached the clerk at city hall to ask about my plan, she couldn't provide a clear answer--she just laughed and called the other clerks to come out and look at me as if I were a circus freak. To find out if selling drinks to motorists through a window was legal, I would have to just try it and see what happened. If I could survive one week without getting arrested, maybe that would serve as proof that my idea was legal.

This seems to be leaving something out of the story. Cities license businesses, sure, but usually liquor licenses come from the state and that state-level department issues a range of conditions on its licenses, which may or may not be in statutory law. Was that not the case in Louisiana in 1980? It seems to be the case there now.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 9:46 AM
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The bigger thing probably left out of the story is because it was (a) Louisiana and (b) 1980, it seems vanishingly unlikely he wasn't distributing bribes to everyone the minute his sales picked up.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 9:51 AM
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It never occurred to me before, but those frozen drink machines in gas stations are just for people putting booze in them, aren't they. Not like the slushie machines, but ones that have the big tanks under constant motion.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 10:02 AM
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Texas still had no open container law in cars when I moved here in 2000. But it seemed hella anachronistic.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 10:04 AM
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Or rather, the law was that you could have at max 1 fewer open containers than occupants of the car.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 10:09 AM
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Real friends can drink from the same can.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 10:10 AM
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Also until circa 2010, the bars in Heebieville closed at midnight. So students would drink till then, then drive to Austin to finish drinking at 2, and then drive home again. That was insanely bad policy and I've heard rumblings of re-instating it for some godforsaken reason. (But I suspect one of the biggest proponents was the subject of one of the six funerals I'm ongoingly attending, so maybe not.)


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 10:12 AM
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People in Pittsburgh go to after hours clubs, which can stay open until 3:00. I have no idea what time regular bars have to close because I can't stay up very late these days.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 10:19 AM
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That statement that New England states have higher rates of drunk driving fatalities than Louisiana is entirely false and is not backed up by the data in the link the article provides as a citation.
What that data does show is that, as a percentage of driving fatalities, drunk driving makes up higher percentages in New England. But that is a pretty useless stat, and is offset because New England has way lower automobile-related death rates to begin with. For example, in 2021 Massachusetts had 6 deaths per 100,000 people and Louisiana had 21 deaths per 100,000.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 10:45 AM
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That's the New Hampshireian.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 11:07 AM
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20: usually liquor licenses come from the state
Do they? Must vary by state. That's definitely not how it works in MA; retail licenses are issued by the municipalities. There's a state-level board that can review the decisions of the municipal liquor boards, and there's state control over how many licenses each municipality has, and producer and distributor licenses are state-level, but the third tier of the three-tier system is municipally licensed.


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 11:18 AM
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28: I wonder if there is any public health comparison between the South and New England that favors the South.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 11:43 AM
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Most vigorous tape worms.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 11:58 AM
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If there's an open container law in New Orleans, it is aggressively unenforced


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 1:38 PM
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Like in cars, or just walking around?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 2:27 PM
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both


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 2:28 PM
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Presumably not for the actual driver but I wouldn't bet money on it.


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 2:30 PM
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I think I read that the New Orleans police are very easy to bribe.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 2:32 PM
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I wouldn't bet money on (or against, I mean) that either.

Both times I visited everyone who lives there was extremely willing to take open beers in a cab/uber, drive while other people were openly drinking, etc.. I can't remember if we did that actually in front of police but I know no one was at all worried about it.

And bars just give you drinks in plastic cups to go; walking around is definitely allowed.


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 2:39 PM
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39

Glass is better for the environment.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 2:48 PM
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40

This might be where I read bribery.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-11-25 3:19 PM
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41

Back then, the state university was the party school for rich white kids
What changed?


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 04-12-25 6:04 AM
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I think just the ratio of white people to Hispanic people.


Posted by: heebie | Link to this comment | 04-12-25 9:13 AM
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30: The saga of trying to get more licenses for Boston restaurants at an affordable price has been crazy.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 04-12-25 9:57 AM
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Not retail, but restaurant and bar.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 04-12-25 9:58 AM
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Restaurant and bar count as retail here. They're the third tier, the one that can sell to individuals, whether that's on-premise or off-premise.
The saga of Boston licenses is in changing the total allocated to Boston (and sometimes to specific Boston neighborhoods).

Much like taxi licenses, making liquor licenses scarce but tradable made them expensive, and there are now businesses with a valuable asset that are opposed to any loosening that would damage the value of that asset. A thoroughly nasty place for a system to get stuck in.


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 04-12-25 12:24 PM
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Massachusetts?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-12-25 1:48 PM
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45: There was a Globe trifle bout how when Durgin Park closed, it was unclear which entity owned the liquor license, so it reverted back to the city. A small new restaurant got it without hung to go on the open market.

What I've never understood about Boston's liquor licenses is whether the neighborhood allocation is determined by Boston or the legislature. Why is it that it's so hard to get a restaurant liquor license in Boston as compared to Cambridge, Somerville or Brookline. Obviously, it's because there are fewer licenses relative to demand ( or were before they expanded certain neighborhood licenses) but why was having liquor in Boston scarier than Camberville?


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 04-13-25 3:11 AM
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"Globe trifle bout"

Autocorrect of kerfuffle?

Alternatively, a challenge where contestants must produce a trifle that plausibly could have been served at the Globe theater. Results will be judged on presentation, taste, historical verisimilitude, and witty repartee.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-13-25 4:13 AM
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People know the daiquiri shack was not founded in New Orleans, right? It was Lafayette.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 04-13-25 11:50 AM
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