AUSTIN, Texas Texas lawmen are going undercover to catch people who drink too much.
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission says officers are posing as bar patrons to write tickets or make arrests for public intoxication -- even if the offenders haven't left their favorite watering hole.
Fines can reach five-hundred dollars.
Agency spokeswoman Carolyn Beck says drinking is fine, but people who drink too much can be a danger to themselves and others. The program is also aimed at cutting down on drunken driving.
The group Mothers Against Drunk Driving says Texas had 12-hundred-64 alcohol-related traffic deaths in 2004 -- the most in the nation.
So far, about 22-hundred tickets have been written or arrests made for public drunkenness.
What makes this a little bizarre for me is that the arrests are happening inside the bar and in fact hotel bars where people are staying. If anything, Texas might as well hang up a sign saying, "Dry by 2007". I'm not for drunk driving and those people should be locked up. However, arresting people who haven't left bars may be a little extreme unless they've shown signs that they will hurt people in their condition.
I was wondering how others felt about this, expecially our resident bartending Texan since he probably sees this everyday and has probably a lot riding on this. Or maybe it might to be much ado about nothing - I only caught wind of the story in the NBC Nightly News tonight so my view of the situation may be fuzzy from here in northern Indiana.