VIRB

1.) My father, (He and I are the to most honest people I know), About 30yrs ago, when he was still in the United States Air Force, a career which lasted 22yrs starting off with his time in Thailand during the Vietnam conflict. My father was stationed in Maine, USA. one night he received a DUI, spent the night in jail, went to court, plead guilty and paid his fines. A month later he was given orders to go the Homestead AFB, FL. where I was born several years later in 1983, I digress, While in the service of the United States Air Force my father never had a driver's license other than the Ohio Driver's license, (a possible exception would have been when he was in Hawaii), 30yrs ago this happend!! And he squared the issue away with the state of Maine!! Since my father retired from the United States Armed Forces he got his Florida driver's license and moved the family to Fort Myers, Fl. When the issue of his license's renewal comes up, The state has always, and automatically renewed it, Until this year, 2008.
My father went to the DMV stood in the god awful DMV line, to have his license renewed this year in person as requested by the state. The individual behind the counter said that they could not renew the license because of a violation in the state of Maine, that there was an issue with the national database. In order to renew his license this year, The way-to-phallic state of Florida, (which at this point I feel deserves to become the Lost state of Florida, I think it would be the only bonus to the Ice cap's rapid melt down), wants my 61yr old father, who not only served his country 22yrs and fought in the Vietnam conflict, but also just survived cancer, to go and pay $35 and go to driving school. ARE YOU FUCKIN' KIDDING ME!! SERIOUSLY, FOR A VIOLATION LITERALLY ACROSS THE COUNTRY 30YRS AGO!!!!
My father then hung up on the lady, (DMV employees gave him a number to call....apparently a bitch hotline, she wasn't the nicest individual, and is that not her job....Customer Service??, Frankly I don't even think I've seen my father raise his voice more than a handful of occasions and it was usually at me for being a stupid kid). saying, "perhaps I don't even want a Florida Driver's License", problem with that...There isn't even one city I know of in this entire state with an effective and adequate system public transportation, the state in which suburban sprawl is sooo bad that you NEED a car to get from point, "a", to point, "b".

2.)"The under 21 bar ban in Fort Myers, Fl."; Recently I've attended some meetings with the, "Arts & Entertainment Proprietor's Alliance", of Fort Myers, in which the 1 topic of discussion was; the, "18-20yr olds ban to enter bars within the city of Fort Myers". The blatant facts that since 2002 when the city implemented the ban foot traffic in the Downtown area has decreased into NOTHINGNESS, seriously go downtown on a Thursday - Saturday night!! you tell me, is there anyone out there?? Is there anyone in any of the bars, clubs, or restaurants? NO, flat out, no there are not. More than a handful of businesses have closed down since the ban was put into place, as a matter of fact, there's actually a very very long list of businesses.

Ok, let me get to the arguments before I really start to rant!

2a.) The first argument is that there will be more underage drinking if the ban is lifted. I can cite from an article in the News-Press today that a, Brenda Gellinger of the organization, M.A.D.D. (Mother's Against Drunk Driving), presented this argument.

Unfortunately the city has made it very difficult for taxis to even be in the downtown area, there are no taxi stands, though we'd like there to be. One of the alliance's allies is the Metro Cab company. We obvioulsy care about this problem.

I even as a store clerk at Priced Right Liquor went through quite an ordeal thanks to the state to just sell bottled alcoholic beverages to individuals. The "thanks", I just gave the state is not a sarcastic one mind you! The State of Florida is doing it's job and it's part to ensure that even a sales clerk at a liquor store is being responsible, there is already legislation in place to make sure that the staff of these establishments are not breaking the laws! What the staff of an establishment who actually serves alcoholic beverages to patrons who enjoy their drinks within the establishment have to go through to satisfy the state is far more rigorous than what I had to do!! they are responsible, and on top of that, the alliance wants to go to extra effort to maintain even greater responsibility.
When young adults feel alienated and understand that they cannot even enter the city limits without threat of their patronage being rejected, they themselves become dejected! They then do not even enter the city, and take business else where!
A big concern discussed was the issue of, "handing off", a drink to an underage individual within an establishment. We as an alliance an ensure the citizens of the City of Fort Myers, that we will take responsibility of making sure that this does not happen. most bars and clubs already do! getting their liquor license was a very costly process, and in the instance that a law is broken and that same license is taken away, that is even more costly to the proprietor! We can control issues such as that, but only within the establishment!!! There is nothing that a proprietor can do in the instance of a house or woods party, when a group of young adults find their own way to have alcohol purchased for them, and then consume it irresponsibly!! That instance is not a controlled environment, that instance will actually cause more harm to the lives of individuals than lifting this ban and allowing underage patrons into the establishments, which is a controlled environment. The Bars and resturants hire security and train their staff to keep it controlled.
A scenorio; three 18 -20yr olds go into a club, they convince an orlder patron to buy them a drink, when the bar staff takes notice, not only are all four of those indiviuals thrown out but the now FORMER patron who handed off the drinks is legally liable and will have to explain, him/herslf in the court of law!! At the most these underage patrons may have consumed one or fewer alcoholic beverages, they will now also have to deal with explainning to their parents and family why the FMPD is calling them in the middle of night to have them picked up, and again all forur of those FORMER patrons will have to explain to their friends why they are not only banned from one club downtown, but all the clubs downtown! that sounds pretty effective to me, not to mention that thanks to police involvement, none of those FORMER patrons will even have the opprotunity to drive anywhere that night.

VS.

Three underage individuals get an indiviual who is over the age of 21 to purchase legally alcohol from a liquor store, hand it off at some one's house or in someone's car, and then proceed to a house or woods party, or some uncontrolled environment to then drink, more than likely WAY MORE than one alcoholic beverage, without any legal consequnces, however, they might in this case suffer from alcohol poisoning or worse. Not to mention that in this scenario the individuals in question will almost always end up driving home, or elsewhere completely drunk, possibly way beyond the legal limit which is a law established for someone who is of the age to drink, in this scenario they are more than likely going to be underage!

Which sounds more harmful to you?? seriously, I could answer that without even taking time to think.

2b.)the next argument here is even more absurd; Councilman Johhny Streets is quoted in the paper, (Yes, Fort Myers has but one News paper), "To put the burden on law enforcement is just not going to work and I think would create more problems", SERIOUSLY I THINK THE MAN WAS ASLEEP DURING THE COUNSIL MEETING YESTURDAY! Whenever law enforcement was mentioned, It was mentioned in the obvious context of the Alliance working with law enforcement. Not only do we intend to work with the police department to create and maintain the controlled environment and a safe downtown area, but we want to work with them to uphold the goddamned law! THAT'S THEIR FUCKING JOB!!! I thought it was anyways, apparently I'm wrong??
What do we expect the police to do?

1.When we call, they should respond, we have several beat cops to do just that, the city has even hired on more bike patrols specifically for the downtown area, I'm pretty sure that they are there to do more than write parking tickets.

2.help us to keep the streets cleared and safe. Is there really anything else that we are asking??

The second biggest arguement is that of crowd control and clean streets, we've come up with many solutions with which this argument can be put to rest.For instance, we already do not allow patrons to carry glasses or bottles out of the establishment, not even into the established wet zone which some of the bars and clubs have.
One of our biggest problems in that arena; it is illegal for us, even as bar staff to go out onto the sidewalks after hours and pick up bottles and or plastic cups. we cannot have in our hands even the former containers of alcoholic beverages. So we are not legally allowed to clean our own wet zones after hours, awesome! so much for the clean streets, but we can work together, with police in hand to create a solution, can we not?

Yes, the economy in the United States, has taken a dive, however, only recently. The ordinance was put into place in 2002, it is now 2008. Businesses began to close and fail before the economic dive. We, the proprietors as well as the city need to generate revenue for that area, it will not come by street scraping as Councilman Tom Leonardo seems to think, people will not come downtown just to drive on bricks or look at the streets and say, "oh how pretty, I think I'll go into this establishment and give them my business because there are such pretty streets downtown"! that is not what will happen, besides fall 2009 when the street scrapping project is SUPPOSED to be completed, might be too late.

That's all for now. I was just very pissed off when I woke up today, 1. after speaking with my father and 2. after reading the news paper.
~Damian A. Dimock