THEY SURE RUN some tricky plays in the ACC. Worse, the referees are the ones calling the shots, so there’s no such thing as an offsides penalty.
No, no ... not the football ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference). It’s the Rome ACC (Alcohol Control Commission) that really makes certain the game always goes its way.
Being fans of law enforcement, as well as football, we know the difference between entrapment and trap plays. Also, that the rules are there for a reason ... but that the rules have been known to be changed in order to improve the game. Well, at least in football.
There’s nothing wrong with the ACC (alcohol variety) running sting operations to keep those under-age from being served, particularly if actual “minors” are involved. That’s generally not the case in Rome.
The legal drinking age is now 21 (instead of 18 as it once was) for reasons of national conformity, not because those under 21 get intoxicated faster. Indeed, in most of the rest of the world (Muslim nations excluded, as drinking is taboo in that religion) the legal drinking and/or purchase age is generally 18. Or lower. Some countries have no minimum for drinking at all, only for purchase. In France, the legal drinking age is 15; in the Isle of Man it is 5. The French indeed appear to be considerably civilized in this regard as “it is not customary to request identification, unless the person is manifestly of inappropriate age.” In Rome the approach is to demand identification unless the person is manifestly approaching retirement age.
ADDITIONALLY, most Georgians are unaware that even their state law has “excep-tions” for a combination of drinking by family members and certain locations, usually private settings. Actually, as of 2006, some 30 states don’t even ban underage consumption and another 15, like Georgia, have the family member exception.
Not only that, but under the federal law setting up the universal age of 21, underage consumption is not illegal (only purchase) and it explicitly provides for religious, medical, employment and private-club exceptions. If the local restaurants recently slammed by the Rome ACC all went to becoming private clubs — $1 a year membership, included in your first meal price? — the local sniffers-out of alcohol consumption by voting adults of 18, 19 and 20 might have a sticky wicket to negotiate.
There’s nothing wrong with stopping children with chin fuzz or in training bras from buying beer, wine or more serious stuff outside of parental presence. Can everybody agree on that? There’s also nothing wrong with parents, in the home or outside it, allowing their youngsters to have wine with a meal. It doesn’t matter if you agree with that or not. They are still our kids, aren’t they? If they belong to the state, can we send City Hall the food and clothing bills, too?
THE PROBLEM with the plays that the Rome ACC runs, and the 15-yard penalties with loss of down it imposes for a restaurant being offsides, is that they totally lack common sense. Is this actually about the $405 fines (for a first offense) imposed? Is this part of plan to keep “nice restaurants” — of which Rome didn’t have many until it approved alcohol service — from coming to town?
The Rome ACC says no, but gives no rational policy explanation for its constant displays of unnecessary rough-ness nor does it seem to have any sort of “written warning” provision.
When 12 restaurants are given four-day suspensions of their alcohol service license, in the busiest season of the year, that’s no slap on the wrist. How would the city like to be made to suspend the writing of all tickets, and collection of fines, for four days (including the red-light camera)?
What would the city’s bottom line look like for that month?
But, what should most infuriate ordinary citizens about this policy is that the Rome ACC used 19- and 20-year-old undercover agents (adults, not minors) to run this sting and armed them with “hidden cameras” to catch the transactions. Government agents, with hidden cameras, filming us eating at the next table while on private and not public property?
Offsides! Slap the government with that four-day fine-collection suspension.
The Rome ACC is playing this game as though it were rugby. It shouldn’t be playing touch football regarding enforcement either, but there’s a middle ground based on common sense entirely missing.
WHAT THE ACC does, and what the rulebook says it should do, need some serious re-examination. Does Rome actually believe that existing restaurant owners aren’t sought out by prospective new ventures in order to learn what the “environment” is like hereabouts?
Does the city, which collects a lot of taxes and fees from these places, really believe this sort of “hit ’em again, harder, harder” policy is good for either business or image?
For example, why fine the “servers” anyhow? Management likely is going to fire them anyway, even though that may not mean a lot given how much in demand wait staff is hereabouts. But if enhanced vigilance is the objective, why not instead fine the manager on duty at the time of the infraction? Might that not make them watch the passing scene like hawks and do a lot more good?
And why take far more than the fine amount away from the establishment in lost business and profits with those license suspensions? And particularly so for a first, or rare, offense. Every one of the 12 cited restaurants, by the way, was a first offender.
Slam the habitual offenders hard ... not everybody. Once they’ve been warned, and then still slip up, that’s when to punish them.
ALAS, the City Commission wound up backing the ACC’s play, although with a lot of arguing and a final 5-3 vote. While it’s good to see some grasp of reality remains within a minority on the commission it is less encouraging to know that two of the three “nay“ votes were from commissioners who won’t return in January. And, even worse, now the commission is talking about increasing the penalties!
Instead, the City Commission’s members, new and old, need to continue this argument by looking into rewriting the rules to reflect more common sense.
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