Fresno, California, (Raisin capital or table grape capital of the world, depending upon who you talk to, and farming home of Professor Victor Davis Hanson) recently began a similar program of "preemptive" drunk driving enforcement. The Fresno Bee reports that "Undercover officers see patrons in bars, then tell officers outside of potential drunken drivers."
Fresno police are taking enforcement of drunken driving laws to a new level - which officers expect will bring both success and outrage. Saturday night, the traffic unit unveiled a new operation in which plainclothes police officers stake out bars and target drunk patrons. If the heavy drinkers get behind the wheel, officers in unmarked cars follow them and call in marked police cars to pull them over.
There seems to be something unseemly about this:
Back at The Dirty Olive, one of Fresno's most popular bars, the undercover officers set up camp in a corner after getting some drinks at the bar. Van Wyhe and Sgt. Bruce Owen are keeping a low profile outside in a white sport utility vehicle with tinted windows.At least they actually are waiting for the suspects to get behind the wheel of a car and drive it before they stop them. Going to be "funny" the first time the police let one of these drunks get behind the wheel of a car and he hits someone before they pull him over. Maybe a little too clever?
The bar is packed. The officers decide to move around to observe the clientele.
An hour passes. As the bar nears its closing time of midnight, patrons pour into the parking lot. The officers are people-watching from a table near the door, then move outside and linger.
It still seems so very wrong.
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True. But again I approve of fascistic, draconian police action that stops people from doing stuff I have voluntarily stopped doing myself. Anything that makes me miss booze less is a net positive in my book.
Until Easter...then I may start to feel like Ice Cube and his infamous song with NWA.
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