Alberta Tories look at raising the drinkin' age ... again

$650,000. What a freakin' waste of money. The Alberta government is implementing a "Cage Your Rage" campaign to curb fighting in bars.

Alberta has been growing like crazy lately and has been getting many under 30 folks coming here from other provinces to work. This has definitely raised the number of patrons at local waterholes.

But raising the drinking age won't do a thing to stop fighting. The under age crowd will find a way. They'll have more house parties when the parents aren't home, or in their aparments, at bush parties, illegal hall parties, and they'll find the booze. There has been a bit too much violence at house parties in the Greater Edmonton area over the last few years. Raising the age just might increase that.

I can see it now, they'll announce when the drinking age will be raised, to even 19, and you'll see a slew of 18 year old guys stocking up at the liquor stores and having their own parties after that date.

Actually, what should happen and what will solve a lot of problems (especially on Whyte Avenue) is to allow bars to stay open as long as they wish (like in Vegas) if they can afford to, while at the same time stop serving over-intoxicated patrons. People in Alberta work really weird hours, why should they be denied these freedoms?

The problem starts when all the bars close and drunk patrons pour out into the street all at the same time looking for cabs, food, etc. Now that bouncers and bodyguards will soon have to be trained like real security guards, they will be better enabled on dealing with and be responsible for handling situations inside and outside their establishments.

Telling an 18 yr old that he can vote, smoke, fight in a war, but not have a beer slaps in the face of liberty. The clear large majority of bar patrons are responsible.

All these regulations on bars, patio sizes, drink prices, closing times, blah blah blah, do NOTHING.

After the freak Canada Day riot on Whyte Avenue way back (which was actually started by out-of-province hoodlums in their mid-twenties), I wrote to the Edmonton Journal saying that we simply need a patrol car at each major intersection on the popular strip and more beat cops. Well, they finally did it and violence on the avenue has dropped dramatically (as long as the Oilers don't make the playoffs, but they had the whole works of cops out for that one eventually).

What's also stupid is how the city hasn't increased the number of cabs allowed in six years! It has become very difficult to find a cab once the bars all close at the same time. Again, stupid regulations.

Now you may think I'm contradicting my libertarian principles due to my strong stance on no smoking in bars. It's simple. In a bar, when someone is drinking, it doesn't affect me at all. If someone is smoking, even at the other end of the room, it does, especially the bar staff who are subjecated to it on a daily basis. There's a big difference there.

If that $650,000 should go to anything, it's more cops who can actually enforce the existing laws, not bureaucratic pet projects that will likely do nothing to change someone's behavior (in some cases, might actually cause a backlash).

Welcome to the new nanny state.