KVNUFTP

Paul Mero and I have been engaged in an ongoing discussion about the whole alcohol issue. With Paul’s permission, I present to you transcripts of a couple of our recent chats. I invite KVNUFTP readers to read these transcripts, analyze our arguments, and then chime in with your own thoughts and information.

[14:33] Tyler: If you read the Senate Site post by John Valentine you will also notice that, indeed, places where liquor is harder to get have LOWER, often MUCH lower, DUI’s and drunk-driving related deaths.
[14:33] Tyler: Liquor is NOT harder to get here than anywhere else.
[14:33] Tyler: Well, to an extent
[14:33] Tyler: there are fewer outlets
[14:34] Tyler: Conveniently, everyone on your side of this argument is failing to detail how the private club membership law translates to fewer people drinking
[14:39] PTM: The nusance factor plays…is it quantified?  Not that I know of…would not know how to do that anyway.  But the better discussion would be about accountability…and does real accountability keep people from doing something indulgent?  I think so…you should think so as a journalist.
[14:40] Tyler: What accountability?
[14:40] Tyler: What does purchasing a membership have to do with accountability, on behalf of any of the parties involved?
[14:41] PTM: the same accountability that exists for gun sales, prescription drug sales, marriage law…anything that is important and affects the public welfare…and has the great chance of being abused.
[14:42] PTM: Are you against gun registration?
[14:42] Tyler: It’s not the same ball park, at all
[14:42] PTM: it’s exactly the same thing
[14:42] Tyler: Private club membership is an empty process
[14:42] PTM: the accountability part
[14:42] Tyler: For what? If you get in a crash?
[14:43] PTM: if it’s empty…then let’s make private membership rules effective…NOT undo them
[14:43] Tyler: Or let’s find a better way to achieve your goal, which I still don’t know what it is
[14:43] Tyler: What do you want the law to accomplish, and accountability is not an answer
[14:43] PTM: MY goal would be to lower consumption…but that’s just me
[14:44] Tyler: OK, well, you’re going to have to concede that isn’t going to happen because it’s a legal product.
[14:44] Tyler: Private club memberships are not decreasing consumption. They are, if anything, creating an increase in consumption
[14:44] PTM: REGULATION lowers consumption, Tyler
[14:45] PTM: it is a basic principle of economics
[14:45] Tyler: You are absolutely wrong on this.
[14:45] PTM: so does taxing BTW
[14:45] Tyler: It is a basic principle of economics, but we’re dealing with a different animal
[14:45] PTM: we see that with the whole cigarette tax argument
[14:46] PTM: “a different animal” is something you ought to try to describe for me
[14:46] Tyler: If you increased the TAX on alcohol, you would see a decrease in consumption.
[14:46] PTM: yes and if you made it harder to obtain you would also see lower consumption
[14:48] PTM: one of the questions I asked Rich goes to the “different animal” idea
[14:48] Tyler: OK, so let’s hear the from the senate the truth. “We want alcohol to be harder to obtain because we are morally against it.”
[14:48] PTM: the “truth” as you read their minds. or as they have stated?
[14:49] Tyler: The “truth” is that Michael Waddoups is making himself and this state look like a bunch of backwards religious freakjob hillbillies. We all know everyone in San Francisco isn’t “a fag” but everyone in the country thinks everyone in San Francisco is a fag.
[14:50] PTM: Doug Wright said this morning that Waddoups was doing this because he supports the construction industry…to make restaurants build out new designs.  Really.
[14:50] Tyler: So if by your definition of allowing the people of this state to create a culture that fits their desires, ergo conceding to the rest of the country that you’re OK with Utah being seen as a cultish polygamous hotbed, then let it be.
[14:50] PTM: And yet we all still travel to SF, don’t we?
[14:50] Tyler: Holy crap.
[14:51] Tyler: More people travel to SF than travel to Utah.
[14:51] PTM: Dude, I know you got up early, but…
[14:52] Tyler: Here’s what’s frustrating about this Paul, and I don’t mean to go to the lowest common denominator here. An 80 percent LDS government is legislating its morals on a 60 percent LDS state. That 20 percent representation gap there is what’s making this a problem for everyone. That’s the bottom line.
[14:52] Tyler: It’s flown since 1896 because the gap was far less defined
[14:53] Tyler: but it’s going to become more pronounced and more problematic, in things not just limited to booze, as this state’s LDS population becomes more and more diluted.
[14:54] PTM: sorry, I was on the phone
[14:54] PTM: what you’re talking about is only a problem if there is a problem with LDS values, culture, and behavior.  Is there?
[14:56] Tyler: There is a problem anytime value set A is imposed on people with value set B, C, D…
[14:57] Tyler: By government, that is.
[14:58] PTM: That’s life man.  And reasonable people can say, look, go ahead and drink but when you purchase it and drink it in public, there are rules
[14:58] Tyler: So what needs to happen, and will happen in Utah, be it 20, 40 or 100 years from now, is a set of rational law will be put into place that addresses issues based on common sense approach, rather than law that addresses issues based on religious beliefs.
[14:58] PTM: whay is that so offensive to you?
[14:58] Tyler: Problem with your statement: It’s not drinking in public. It’s drinking at a private establishment.
[14:59] PTM: yours, so far, is not a common sense approach…it is an empotional approach…boardering on prejudice
[14:59] Tyler: It offends me that government is hell bent on interfering with business like this, and the right for law abiding citizens to partake of a legal product supplied by the business.
[14:59] PTM: but then, unless you live in the private establishment, you must go somewhere, right?  that becomes public
[15:00] Tyler: I’m behind the Huntsman proposal on this, which is very common sense. It’s the response he’s receiving from the senate majority that I (and others) find bordering on prejudice
[15:01] PTM: eating my chicken noddle soup
[15:01] PTM: I know you do…but can you see how I and mine might see your response, espically the religious hillbilly type comment, as prejudiced?
[15:01] PTM: or is that how enlightened people respond?
[15:02] PTM: it gets down to our definitions of freedom, as I wrote to Rich
[15:02] Tyler: The religious hillbillly comment is an accurate representation of how many outside the state of Utah, unfairly, view this state as a whole.
[15:03] Tyler: Just like many here and elsewhere say “everyone in San Francisco is gay”
[15:03] PTM: Tyler, somebody will always make the “rules.”  You must come to grip with that.  Freedom is a balancing act.
[15:04] Tyler: Absolutely, there will be rules, but lets create rules that make sense and achieve sensible goals.
[15:05] Tyler: Goal: We want to reduce the number of drunk drivers on the road.
[15:05] PTM: okay how do you do that and not infringe on someone’s freedom?
[15:06] Tyler: You could start by increasing Utah’s comparitively weak DUI penalties
[15:06] Tyler: And it doesn’t have to be like drug penalties
[15:06] Tyler: In some states, if you are convicted of DUI, you lose your license for up to two years.
[15:06] Tyler: In Utah it’s three to six months on the first offense
[15:07] PTM: do penalties alone keep an indulgent drinker from driving?
[15:07] Tyler: Does it prevent EVERY indulgent drinker from driving? No, of course not. Does it have an effect? Absolutely.
[15:07] PTM: is this a supply-side resolution or a demand-side resolution?
[15:07] PTM: or both?
[15:08] Tyler: Here’s where this argument breaks down between the two sides: The majority of “drinkers” are doing so responsibly.
[15:08] Tyler: They are not driving over the legal limit, they are arranging for rides, taking cabs, public transportation.
[15:09] PTM: how do you know that?
[15:09] PTM: curious
[15:11] Tyler: Locally, I know it because I know most of the people who go out to bars in town and there are plenty of opportunities available to get home safe other than driving drunk. We have a police force in Logan that is extremely aggressive toward DUI arrests, going so far as having multiple officers circle a bar on certain nights pulling over practically every vehicle that leaves the establishment…I’ve studied statistics of DUI arrests and stops in the line of my work as a police reporter
[15:11] PTM: hey man…I have to finish editing something before I hit the airport…sorry to bail on you right now, seriously.  Maybe we can duke it out when I come up ther eto speak in Feb.
[15:12] Tyler: fair enough
[15:13] PTM: take care

—second conversation—

[23:27] PTM: I am sorry I had to cut the convo short this afternoon.
[23:28] Tyler: probably was for the better
[23:28] PTM: what was the hot topic for today’s show?
[23:28] Tyler: More Waddoups bashing
[23:28] PTM: lol
[23:28] Tyler: with callers agreeing
[23:28] PTM: with?
[23:29] Tyler: That it’s asinine to equate chilli’s to a bar
[23:29] PTM: dude, for me Chili’s is a restaurant…but I don’t drink?
[23:29] PTM: although I do know that half of Chili’s in Sandy is a bar and right in front of you when you walk in
[23:30] PTM: same with Applebees at Gateway next to work…a full functioning bar…so take his words easy
[23:30] PTM: good looking girls in it serving drinks and everything
[23:31] Tyler: It’s not a bar, not even close.
[23:31] PTM: looks like it, smells like it, tastes like…it’s a bar inside of a restaurant
[23:31] PTM: it’s not a strip club
[23:31] Tyler: Doesn’t function like a bar
[23:32] PTM: what constitutes a bar?
[23:32] Tyler: You can walk in and order a drink without a meal. And, the restaurant’s “bar area” or “lounge area” serves drinks that are twice as expensive as a bar
[23:32] Tyler: No one goes to a restaurant to get drunk
[23:32] PTM: no they go to the bar inside the restaurant
[23:33] Tyler: You can’t get drunk at a restaurant
[23:33] Tyler: Any police chief will tell you that
[23:33] Tyler: and the bar area is part of the restaurant, it is regulated the same way the restaurant is
[23:33] PTM: and, btw, I don’t think serius drinkers (drunks) go out to get drunk…but people having fun, losing track of time, socializing, get drunk
[23:34] PTM: and, at Chilis and Applebees, kids see it happening right in front of them
[23:34] Tyler: An individual can not get drunk at a restaurant
[23:34] PTM: is that a law?
[23:34] Tyler: It isn’t possible given the laws
[23:35] PTM: well, good then, our laws work…so whatcha bitchin about?
[23:35] Tyler: I can’t speak for the data outside of Cache County, but since 1995, not one DUI has been found as a result of drinking at a restaurant
[23:35] Tyler: I’m not complaining about restaurant laws as they’re presently constituted.
[23:35] PTM: and how, may I ask, you could know if someone drank at a restaurant?
[23:36] Tyler: The private club membership law is horrific and ineffective and the assertion that restaurants should have to hide their liquor is small minded. If you as a parent don’t want your kid to see the liquor, you have a right not to go to the restaurant
[23:36] Tyler: The restaurant absolutely, positively, unequivocally has more of a right to operate business as they choose under the law than you do to be offended at their business practices.
[23:36] PTM: orrrrr…the restaurant could separate their bar from the food part…like Market Street does out where I live
[23:37] Tyler: When a DUI arrest is made the location where the person drinking is recorded.
[23:37] PTM: good law, bad law?
[23:37] Tyler: That’s a decision Market Street can make, but each business should be allowed to operate as they choose.