the sunday 11 february 2007 town talk brought us news (see link) [our clipping] of the city of pineville, louisiana plan to allow the sale of hi-alcohol contented booze in...restaurants.
now this plan flies in the face of all common sense because for one thing when people sit in restaurants and drink cocktails etc then what do they have to do? they have to get in their cars and drive home thus increasing the likelihood of drunk (or as the europeans say "drink drivers" remember princess diana?) drivers. if we lived in a world ruled by common sense and politicians that were actually trying to do good by their constituents and citizens they would ban the sale of alcohol in restaurants and allow the sale of alcohol in all convenience stores. why convenience stores? well if you only have to drive or walk to the nearest convenience store the chances are that you wont be drunk driving by the time you arrive back home. you follow?
pineville's mayor clarence fields says that the purpose of allowing booze sales in pineville is to attract more restaurants. to that the citizens of pineville should ask themselves why is the mayor and city government trying to dumb down or should we say more accurately further dumb down the population by shifting the economy from manufacturing to these low paying service sector jobs? no economy can be strong and vibrant without a healthy manufacturing sector. pineville and the north side of the red river already has many, many manufacturing plants. a few that we can think of off-hand are: procter & gamble, international paper, colfax cresoting, dresser inc., baker manufacturing and so forth. why isnt pineville working with these corporations in trying to produce better educated and trained workers? in other words we need more people working in high paying manufacturing jobs not as bartenders and servers.
this is a patently disingenuous plan and the citizens of pineville really need to reassess the direction their government is taking them.
