Theocracy in action

To keep all those interested informed, the CCCC proposal mentioned on this blog a few posts ago has passed, and will become active when Mayor-President "Kip" Holden signs the law. Bar owners and their representatives, however, were able to score further compromises. The ordinance originally called for specials to end at 8pm, now they have to end at 10pm. Also, they are still permitted to sell drinks up to 60% off the retail price and restaurants are not affected. This means that pint night at Fox and Hound should not be affected, nor will 2 for 1's at Chili's, which are the drink specials I take advantage of most often.

This does not mean, however, that I am not angry with this decision by the metro council. I am all for democracy, and people pushing initiatves that they think will make their community a better place. This ordinance, however, will have no affect. The CCCC in their effort to push this through, reaffirmed every single issue I have with faith-based groups. They typically use views based on the Christian faith, which they have every right to present, but they present no empirical evidence on how they are valid, not to mention say anything regarding the Constitutionality of their views. I guess the Bible is their Constitution. In their initial campaign, the CCCC used nothing more than emotional, anecdotal evidence to support their proposal, and their allies in this fight, MADD, did little better, by providing broad, extremely flawed statistics, all of which gathered internally by the two groups themselves. Essentially both groups used fear. On the other hand, bar owners and business rights groups provided solid, statistically valid evidence, conducted by third parties, that showed that the proposal, if passed, would not accomplish its desired goals, limiting the number of drunk driving incidents in the parish.

In the end, this really affects the crowd of folks who like to hit up Reggie's, Fred's, and the like for late night $1 shots. It does suck that their fun, not my particular brand, has been pissed on. Also, I'm not against government regulation in areas such as this, it's just that it's the burden is on the government to prove that the regulation in question will have a nominal impact on public safety. This was not shown in this case, so in my and many other legal historians' minds, the government has, via the lovely American Theocracy, coerced people without just reasoning. In the words of Jed Bartlett, "God Bless America, since God is an American."