“The police department in Waukesha, Wisconsin, is asking local bars and liquor stores to refuse selling alcohol to misbehaving and habitual drunks. Certainly, the police want to clean up the downtown and encourage the drunks to seek treatment, but should that be the role of the police? How does becoming an uninvited bouncer protect people’s rights? Just as an alcoholic has the right to put anything he wants into his own body, a bar or restaurant, as a private establishment, has the right to deny the drink to the drunk. The incentive of tavern owners to exclude drunks already exists -the drunks make life miserable for the other clients. Let the owners themselves handle the problem. This is not the responsibility of policemen drunk with power.
CAPSULE COMMENTARY: “Police Drunk With Power”
by