Fulop to Drunks: Not In My Backyard

Councilman Steve Fulop wants to ban the sale of single beers in downtown Jersey City, hoping to reduce panhandlers. Business owners of course are outraged that city would limit a lucrative business. We tend to think that its great the city is trying to address the issue of panhandlers, but think they are going about it all the wrong way.

First of all, preventing the sale of single beers will not prevent the sale of beer to panhandlers. Instead, pandhandlers will simply buy larger amounts of alcohol, and so instead of merely having a buzz, the streets will be filled with drunk pandhandlers. Second, the police should instead enforce open container laws, which would do more and impact businesses less.

Lastly, a greater police presence in the downtown business districts would do more to reduce pandhandling then ceasing the sale of single beers. Instead of wasting valuable police manpower searching a few yuppies' duffle bags as they go into the PATH, why not put the police on the street where they actually will do some good?