In Defense of Drinking on the Job

Seattle bands would like to have a beer or two while they perform. The state's booze bureaucrats say otherwise:

In the middle of the Tripwires' performance at the Sunset Tavern last October, guitarist Jim Sangster noticed his cocktail had gone missing. "I had a Makers Mark and a beer on a road case beside the stage; I turned around and they were gone." Sangster's drink had been confiscated by a representative of the Washington State Liquor Control Board. Sangster was in technical violation of a provisional rule, WAC 314-11-015, that forbids drinking by "any person performing services on a licensed premises for the benefit of the licensee."

Read the whole sad, dry tale.

Via Jacob Grier.

Comments

[Ghost Whisperer]

The spirits of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra are currently sleeping one off, but if they were awake I assure you they would outraged by this.

[Subsidize Me!]

Fucking A right.

Dean Martin roasts are the best television I have ever seen (secondhand, since I'm not an old fucker) and every person on the screen is wasted. Except Foster Brooks.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Show business is all about making it look easy. I can't quote anyone in particular but I remember seeing or reading somewhere that Martin on his shows wasn't really blasted, it was an act.

[Barely Suppressed Rage (WTF)]

Exactly. Dean Martin did drink on stage, but he was sober and known to be very professional about putting on a good show for the audience. He played up the whole being drunk bit as part of the gag. He was just as good at it as Foster Brooks.

"Are you sure you're not a pilot?"

[AlmightyJB]

Can you say giant, giant, giant asshole.

[LeSigh]

Is that the name of a band?

[Barely Suppressed Rage (WTF)]

It should be.

Imagine it on a big poster.

"GIANT, GIANT ASSHOLE coming Thursday, August 12!"

[Old Mexican]

In Defense of Drinking on the Job

Finally!!!

[?]

"I had just returned from Spain two nights before, where we had a veritable bar onstage every night."

=/

The law sucks, because it's a law, but it's fitting that a fellow asshole stole his drinks.

[MikeP]

"any person performing services on a licensed premises for the benefit of the licensee"

When I have a beer on a licensed premises, am I not performing the service of drinking the licensee's beer and benefiting him by paying for it?

What if I brush the peanut shells off the table before I sit down? Is that not a service for the licensee's benefit?

[Alan Vanneman]

So is this photo sequence a preview of the "Reason" cruise? I mean, once you get outside the five-mile limit, or whatever it is, you can do anything you damn please.

[BakedPenguin]

...once you get outside the five-mile limit, or whatever it is, you can do anything you damn please.

If that was the case, I think Winehouse would be doing more than drinking. Unless she went to rehab, of course.

[robc]

Monkey knife fights?
Rebroadcasting baseball with implied, oral consent?

[rustedangel]

Instead of explicit written consent? But that would be madness!

[Moe]

Monkey knife fights?

Ha! He ain't pretty no more!

[hmm]

Someone found the .gif pool.

[Fist of Etiquette]

KMW seems to have a penchant for animated cow gifs.

[P Brooks]

Winehouse would be doing more than drinking.

Just wait 'til she starts stomping on the snakes.

[Douglas Fletcher]

God she's a pig.

[Paul]

Guarantee, guaranfuckingtee those individuals that make up the Seattle bands voted for the smoking ban.

Guarantee it.

[monty.crisco]

Ya, hypocrisy is a bitch, as is chickens coming home to roost. Fuck those guys.

[rustedangel]

All of the Seattle musicians I know opposed the smoking bans. However, they're all metal musicians, a lot of them smoke, and a lot are skeptical of paternalistic government interventions.

[Paul]

Yeah, their fans certainly wanted it.

I haven't been to the Mercury since the smoking ban started. At first, it was because my newly-Lasik'd eyeballs wouldn't be able to handle it, but now... well, I just don't want to come home smelling like an ashtray after an hour or two.

It's too bad, because it was my favorite place for industrial.
[...]
Cons: Crowded dancefloor with drunk people wildly waving lit cigarettes / full drinks about; bad air circulation. Even with fans and the back door propped open, dancing during the summer can be uncomfortable. (If there is air conditioning, it only extends to the seated area?) The sloping entrance can be dangerous on icy winter nights even if you're wearing practical footwear.

So let's see here. A fan of "industrial" whines because of all the icky cigarettes, people waving their arms, lack of proper air circulation, and slippery conditions even in "practical footwear".

That's so fucking Seattle. Next thing you know, she'll be yelling at the server that the nuts on the bar aren't "organic" and the coffee wasn't "Fair trade".

[zeroentitlement]

Lessee, it's a nightclub, and she listed "cons" as..."Crowded dancefloor with drunk people wildly waving lit cigarettes / full drinks about." Cons? Seriously?

So the reviewer's idea of an awesome nightclub would be...what? Old Country Buffet? Saturday night dance at the Sons of Norway lodge?

Give her ten years, she'll be bitching that she can't get her kids' $800 stroller through the door of Noc Noc.

[skr]

lol

[Douglas Fletcher]

Yeah that's why they all voted for Obama.

[sage]

You know, stuff like this makes me think you libertarians aren't too "Reasonable" about some stuff. I'm thinking about canceling my subscription again. Don't you believe in roads? Hitler.

[CoyoteBlue]

Postrel would have never published this.

[Drink!]

Wasted

[Adolf Hitler]

I built ze best roadz in ze country!

[Greg Nickels]

And I made the trains run on time!

[Benito Mussolini]

Copycat!

[robc]

Even fascism couldnt make Italian trains run on time.

[Jerry]

Maybe the law exists to keep inebriated striptease dancers from falling off the stage?

[Episiarch]

Actually, as I understand it, drinks cannot be served in strip clubs in Washington state. Must make for great times.

[?]

That's why you BYOB.

[P Brooks]

Threadjack!

Bud Selig needs a good ass-kicking.

"We need help here," West wrote the bank, according to court filings. "Unless the lenders weigh in, we are going to be stuck negotiating a deal that is clearly worse than Crane's."

The lenders refused to approve the Greenberg-Ryan deal.

In an April letter to New York-based JPMorgan filed with the bankruptcy court, Selig expressed his disappointment. The terms of the loans to Hicks required the lenders to sign off on the sale because the commissioner's office had deemed it "in the best interests of baseball," he wrote.

"I expect lender consent and full cooperation with the closing of the transaction," the commissioner wrote.

Business Week

[Robert]

Apparently you have to make a deal with the bar across the street to serve each other's performers.

[Colonel_Angus]

So many ways they will get you for that. The ordinance forbids any drinking while performing services for the licensee- that rules out BYOB. And if go cups aren't legal in Seattle, getting drinks from accross the street is a no go because you would violate open containers or some bullshit.

[alcoholic anomalous]

There is something really sexy about Amy Winehouse - in a skanky kinda' way.

[BakedPenguin]

She's filled out a bit. Looks like she's laying off the coke.

[?]

She should change her name to Wafflehouse.

[Barely Suppressed Rage (WTF)]

There is something really sexy about Amy Winehouse

Man, I thought my eyesight was bad.

I wouldn't fuck her with Bea Arthur's dick.

[Tb]

Was this a Creed cover band? The only proper, rock n' roll, response to The Man grabbing your drinks is a bout of ultra-violence. Wipe the bureaucrat's smile off with a Les Paul.

[Predicador]

The most annoying about this is thinking about great jobs these representatives of the Washington State Whatever Control Board have - walking around licensed premises looking for shit. I bet they have some expenses paid, too.

[~V~]

Hey man I am not drinking that 151 I am using it to blow fire for the show!

You will all be Nannies bitches soon enough.

[Paul Westerberg]

Thank God Minnesota didn't have the same fucking rule.

[blubi]

So there are bureaucrats with nothing better to do than enforce "WAC 314-11-015" - going to clubs, taking musicians? drinks and testing them for alcohol. Good to see taxes being spent on essential services.

One of the motivations for amateur bands was free drinks from the bar, what?s next: licenses and union membership?