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Fort Worth PD Doesn't Want To Take You To A Gay Bar

post #1 of 66
6/29/09 at 1:58pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Is it a coincidence that the Ft. Worth police chose the anniversary of the Stonewall riots to raid a gay bar called the Rainbow Lounge and arrest 7 people (hospitalizing one, who may have bleeding on the brain, according to the Dallas Voice) for public intoxication? Did you even know it’s a crime to be drunk in a bar? Probably not, because while it’s technically a crime to be intoxicated in public, it’s a minor one and usually you have to be a danger to yourself or other people. It’s in place mainly to arrest drunks getting into fights or people that are drunk and about to get behind the wheel. Or, it seems, if the cops want to honor the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots to intimidate gays and lesbians who thought that winning Lawrence v. Texas was the final step in making it legal to be gay in Texas. The blog at the Dallas Voice is bearing witness to what happened at the Rainbow Lounge Saturday night, and helping organize protests.
What the fuck.
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post #2 of 66
6/29/09 at 2:04pm
Old school Texas justice, baby!

What's wrong with beating up fags?

*sigh*
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post #3 of 66
6/29/09 at 2:06pm
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post #4 of 66
6/29/09 at 2:14pm
Gay bar raids, still? Jesus. Nice work there Texas.

(Insert Electric Six joke here)
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post #5 of 66
6/29/09 at 2:53pm
There are some days when I wonder why any gay folks still even want to live in this country.
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post #6 of 66
6/29/09 at 2:54pm
Yeah the Fort Worth PD and TABC are in a shit ton of trouble atm. It was extremely obvious that they were out to intimidate the gay community. Didn't work!

PIs are actually quite common in North Texas. If you're intoxicated and in the car (but not driving) then you can get a PI and if you come out of a bar and are clearly intoxicated then you get a PI. Handing out PIs while IN the bar is kind of a no no, but the TABC has been really really nasty the last few years. They've been getting nailed for false arrests and entrapment for some bad busts they did at convenience stores.

And the Fort Worth PD has some of the biggest pricks on the planet. They seem to lose an officer every year because he's sloppy when doing a DUI (steps into traffic and is killed) which leads the rest of the department to get super gungho are tamping down DUIs and PIs.

But with the press this "raid" is getting they're both in for a world of hurt and I'm excited.
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post #7 of 66
6/29/09 at 2:58pm
Thread Starter 
Wasn't the TABC going on raids in Dallas at some point last year? I distinctly remember something to that effect happening but can't recall the specifics.
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post #8 of 66
6/29/09 at 2:59pm
This is about par for the course in Ft. Worth. That city breeds assholes.
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post #9 of 66
6/29/09 at 4:53pm
How funny there's this fixation on PI when I heard just a few years ago it was legal to drink from an open container out in public. Goddamn Texas. You know how to show it off.

And all of this with Dallas supposedly being this big gay town in Texas.
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post #10 of 66
6/29/09 at 4:57pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by EdHocken View Post
And all of this with Dallas supposedly being this big gay town in Texas.
Well, that's Dallas, not Fort Worth. The two are kinda like night and day - Dallas is a fair bit more progressive (not as much as Austin, but considering its location it's pretty progressive) and Fort Worth is like the angry bastard redneck stepson that doesn't get enough attention so it likes to lash out.

EDIT: And there are still dry counties in Texas, so the place definitely has an oddly bipolar relationship with booze - for all the glorification of "gettin' fucked up", it's still fairly backwards. I had to explain this at length to my girlfriend when we went to visit my parents and had to drive for an hour (across two county lines, no less) to go buy alcohol.
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post #11 of 66
6/29/09 at 4:59pm
Redneck stepson eh? Where does the shit hole that is El Paso fit into this? That and Amarillo?
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post #12 of 66
6/29/09 at 5:22pm
Thread Starter 
I haven't really spent enough time in either to be any sort of help with that - just passed through each on a Greyhound a few times and spent the entire time there just wanting to get the fuck out.
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post #13 of 66
6/29/09 at 10:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake View Post
EDIT: And there are still dry counties in Texas, so the place definitely has an oddly bipolar relationship with booze - for all the glorification of "gettin' fucked up", it's still fairly backwards. I had to explain this at length to my girlfriend when we went to visit my parents and had to drive for an hour (across two county lines, no less) to go buy alcohol.
Not to mention that you can by liquor at all or beer before noon on Sundays.

Praise Jesus.
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post #14 of 66
6/29/09 at 11:03pm
TABC is state, not city wide, and they're NOTORIOUS for being baddies. They've been pulling this for the last two years all over North Texas. One can only hope this will get them in a world of hurt. It's basically been a stealth Operation Last Call.

And Fort Worth would not be the bastard stepchild. I mean have you been to a play in Dallas? Or their museums? Terrible. And it's Fort Worth, not Dallas that has the popular LBGT film festival every year.

Fairmont in Fort Worth is every bit as gay friendly as Lemon Ave...in fact more so. You're not stuck in a god awful high rise from the 70s but in a wicked cute Craftsmen from the 20s.

Also many, many states in the South have dry counties. The county where Jack Daniels is brewed is a dry county. And you call Texas schizo when it comes to alcohol?
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post #15 of 66
6/30/09 at 1:15am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercury318 View Post
TABC is state, not city wide, and they're NOTORIOUS for being baddies. They've been pulling this for the last two years all over North Texas. One can only hope this will get them in a world of hurt. It's basically been a stealth Operation Last Call.

And Fort Worth would not be the bastard stepchild. I mean have you been to a play in Dallas? Or their museums? Terrible. And it's Fort Worth, not Dallas that has the popular LBGT film festival every year.

Fairmont in Fort Worth is every bit as gay friendly as Lemon Ave...in fact more so. You're not stuck in a god awful high rise from the 70s but in a wicked cute Craftsmen from the 20s.
Fair enough - I never spent a lot of time in FW.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercury318 View Post
Also many, many states in the South have dry counties. The county where Jack Daniels is brewed is a dry county. And you call Texas schizo when it comes to alcohol?
No, I call the South schizo when it comes to alcohol, with Texas being my only point of reference.
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post #16 of 66
6/30/09 at 1:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by EdHocken View Post
How funny there's this fixation on PI when I heard just a few years ago it was legal to drink from an open container out in public. Goddamn Texas. You know how to show it off.
My favorite one is the law that says it is illegal to take more than three sips of alcohol at a time. Think about it: how many sips CAN you take at a time?

That one's on the books, folks. Go Texas!
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post #17 of 66
6/30/09 at 1:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake View Post
No, I call the South schizo when it comes to alcohol, with Texas being my only point of reference.
True enough. The South as a whole is schizo about alcohol. I'm always amazed when I'm in another state and I can buy alcohol on a Sunday night. By amazed I mean "delighted."

But keep your fingers crossed about TABC getting read the riot act. Austin wants to minimize and shut down some highly effective departments but they let TABC just run rampant. It's awful. It also scares me. When I go to Six Flags and get tanked before riding the Cliffhanger I want to know there won't be a set of plastic cuffs waiting for me after I'm done.
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post #18 of 66
6/30/09 at 11:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Clark View Post
My favorite one is the law that says it is illegal to take more than three sips of alcohol at a time. Think about it: how many sips CAN you take at a time?

That one's on the books, folks. Go Texas!
Not only that, how do you quantify a sip?
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post #19 of 66
6/30/09 at 11:54am
California has some doozies too fellas. Matter of fact every state does. Go USA!!
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post #20 of 66
6/30/09 at 11:57am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Clark View Post
My favorite one is the law that says it is illegal to take more than three sips of alcohol at a time. Think about it: how many sips CAN you take at a time?

That one's on the books, folks. Go Texas!
It's like that "Two More Sips" bit from that one Patton Oswalt album. Wasn't that one recorded in Austin, by the way? Is that why there's apparently a statute of limitations on three? What the fuck, world?
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post #21 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:05pm
You mean that there are actually people on these boards that live in places you're not allowed to buy alcohol? Wow. I've heard about places like that but this seems more widespread that I thought.
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post #22 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:10pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by stelios View Post
You mean that there are actually people on these boards that live in places you're not allowed to buy alcohol? Wow. I've heard about places like that but this seems more widespread that I thought.
Pretty much, thanks to ass-backwards Southern Baptist neo-Prohibitionism.

There's an old Baptist joke about why Jim Beam bottles are squared off that should probably just be accepted as fact by now.
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post #23 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:13pm
It's not just the deep South afflicted with this. Here in Indiana you can't buy alcohol on Sundays, either.
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post #24 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:15pm
The county my parents live in in North Carolina, you can bring your own bottle of wine into a restaurant and have them serve it to you, but the restaurant can't offer alcohol on the menu.

And there are plenty of stores in Orlando that won't sell liquor after midnight on Saturday or before noon on Sunday. I stopped at a Wal-Mart once on the way home one night a few years ago to get some beer, got in line at 11:45pm and due to there being only one cashier open, got to the front after midnight. And they wouldn't sell me the beer. Nevermind I had it in my hands before midnight, their system would not even allow it to be scanned once midnight hit.

Never understood the idea that alcohol is somehow magically more evil after certain times or on certain days.
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post #25 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:21pm
As for why you can't buy alcohol on certain hours (or days) it all goes back to colonial times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law
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post #26 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:21pm
Seattle is like this, you can't find a liqour store open after 9 PM. For a town that seems to run on weed. This seems hippocritical.
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post #27 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:22pm
Right, but, seeing as how we're no longer in colonial times, continuing to have these kind of laws makes no sense.
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post #28 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:25pm
It was more for Stelios. You're old enough to understand what blue laws are Dickson and you should realize I understand how illogical it is to still have these laws on the books.
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post #29 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:30pm
Damn. Next thing I know, I'm going to find out there are places where you're not allowed to dance too.
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post #30 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:34pm
I can't understand why liquor places close at nine and beer can't be bought after midnight? Was there a super secret "bad stuff" meeting that I missed or something? Who came up with that bullshit? Either way it's not just the south or Texas it's just that the south is more prone to the hyper religious over-reaction a'la Footloose.

Sucks for us that live here but hey, at least we get to play chicken with tractors. Top that California!
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post #31 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:42pm
Yay! One more reason to hate this fucking state, why do I live here again?

One day I will execute my plan to Raize every city in Texas EXCEPT Austin, the center of sanity in a batshit crazy state.
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post #32 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by stelios View Post
Damn. Next thing I know, I'm going to find out there are places where you're not allowed to dance too.
Heh.
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post #33 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by reggie-wanker View Post
No way. This has to be a misunderstanding. Doesn't it?
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post #34 of 66
6/30/09 at 12:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by stelios View Post
No way. This has to be a misunderstanding. Doesn't it?
No, just your run-of-the-mill douchebaggery.
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post #35 of 66
6/30/09 at 1:25pm
Here in Georgia you aren't allowed to sell alcohol at all on Sundays. There's no real logic to this, and a bill comes up about ever year, but it always defeated.
We just go to the "black side of town" to the, "liquor house" where they sell gin and Hawaiian Punch for $2 a cup.

I didn't realize until recently that you can't even sell alcohol after midnight at certain (all?) stores. I went to Wal-mart to buy beer and they wouldn't sell it to me because it was 12:15 a.m. I asked when I could buy it and they said not until 6 a.m. Why the fuck would it be okay to buy alcohol at 6 a.m. but not midnight?
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post #36 of 66
6/30/09 at 1:29pm
The town I (partially) grew up in is a very religious Southern Baptist town of 10,000 (with over 100 churches). It isn't like this as much anymore, but in the early 90s basically the entire town (excepting restaurants) shut down on Sundays and most places (banks, Post Office, etc.) closed at noon on Wednesdays so their employees could get ready for Wednesday night service at church that evening.
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post #37 of 66
6/30/09 at 1:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by EdHocken View Post
Seattle is like this, you can't find a liqour store open after 9 PM. For a town that seems to run on weed. This seems hippocritical.
What the shit man? You can buy liqour in all of their grocery stores. It's my favorite part of WA.
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post #38 of 66
6/30/09 at 2:05pm
What's funny is, a lot of these places that don't let you buy beer at a store on a Sunday will sure let you buy one at the racetrack or football stadium on a Sunday.

Some of the logic behind it -- if you want to call it that -- is that they figure if you can't buy liquor after midnight, you'll stop drinking at midnight, making the late night roads a little safer. As if no one who wants to drink has a way of getting alcohol after midnight. Or if they don't, like this doesn't encourage them to drink more than they normally would before the cutoff.

And nevermind the fact that you can get killed by a drunk driver just as easily after midnight on a Tuesday as you can after midnight on Saturday.
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post #39 of 66
6/30/09 at 2:12pm
Oh yeah, while the Sunday Liquor Sales law is statewide, most counties allow restaurants to serve alcohol on Sunday (except, of course, in the bassackwards county I lived in).
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post #40 of 66
6/30/09 at 3:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ratty View Post
There are some days when I wonder why any gay folks still even want to live in this country.
How can anyone live in a country where it's illegal to be intoxicated in public?
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post #41 of 66
6/30/09 at 10:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by stelios View Post
You mean that there are actually people on these boards that live in places you're not allowed to buy alcohol? Wow. I've heard about places like that but this seems more widespread that I thought.


Quote:
Originally Posted by GeneJacket View Post
Yay! One more reason to hate this fucking state, why do I live here again?

One day I will execute my plan to Raize every city in Texas EXCEPT Austin, the center of sanity in a batshit crazy state.
...or you could just move.
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post #42 of 66
7/1/09 at 5:47pm
Dan Savage weighs in with a great editorial, pointing out the Chief of Police's classic "The faggots had it comin'" defense.

An excerpt:

Quote:
Allow me to translate the chief's comments: "Them faggots in that thar bar touched mah officers and now they're complainin' about some rough stuff and one little ol' faggot with a brain injury? Those perverts should be grateful they're alive."

This is a classic example of the Gay Panic Defense. In the very recent past all a straight man who brutally murdered a gay man had to say was, "He made a pass at me!", and the jury would ignore the evidence and let the murderer off. The Gay Panic Defense doesn't fly in many courts of law these days but it still has currency in the court of public opinion. And the chief of police in Forth Worth, a major U.S. city, is attempting to use the Gay Panic Defense to convince the citizens of Fort Worth to ignore the evidence—to ignore photographic evidence and credible eyewitness accounts—and let his officers off.
It's a great read.
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post #43 of 66
7/1/09 at 5:59pm
I've always thought it to be the height of egotism to assume that just because you are male, ALL gay men want you.
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post #44 of 66
7/1/09 at 6:14pm
Funny how the offense was so egregious and offensive to the cops that it took 5 uniformed officers to take down a 160 pound gay bar patron, yet they didn't charge him with anything.

"Oops. I think we broke 'im."

"Shit. Can we do that?"

<rifling through police manual> "Yep! Says rat here, you kin break a faggit."

apologies to Pryor
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post #45 of 66
7/1/09 at 6:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob View Post
What the shit man? You can buy liqour in all of their grocery stores. It's my favorite part of WA.
Incorrect, sir. In the state of Washington liquor can only be obtained in state-run liquor stores. This is a big bone of contention and many want to privatize liquor sales here. As a matter of fact, currently, there is a computer glitch in the state's distribution system that could lead to woefully under-stocked liquor store shelves just in time for the 4th of July weekend.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm..._booze01m.html

I see you are from Minnesota so perhaps you are confusing the fact that we can buy beer higher than 3.2 percent alcohol in grocery stores and gas stations. My lady is from MN and she tells me that you have to go to a different store to get 6% beer.

Our liquor stores do close at nine but beer and wine is sold until 2 a.m. The liquor stores used to all be closed on Sundays but the state is allowing more and more to open on Sundays because Washington is in desperate need of tax revenue. Though one way to cut the budget while bringing in liquor tax would be to eliminate paying leases on state-run stores by allowing privitized sales.
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post #46 of 66
7/1/09 at 6:39pm
I knew I was right about that nine PM rule. Like I said, total bullshit. Especially in such a liberal town that is Seattle.
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post #47 of 66
7/1/09 at 6:52pm
These laws are so strange. 3.2% alcohol content? I didn't even realize there were beers with that little alcohol in them.

I was in Virginia for a wedding last year and the liquor stores there are state run as well, and all named ABC Something. I didn't even realize they were liquor stores at first.
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post #48 of 66
7/1/09 at 6:53pm
It isn't exactly a rule. Liquor stores are run by the state. The state sets the hours of operation. Some of the stores of larger revenue may be open until 10 p.m. Cocktails are still sold in bars until 2 a.m. You just can't by liquor by the bottle anywhere except at a state-run store.
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post #49 of 66
7/1/09 at 7:15pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
I've always thought it to be the height of egotism to assume that just because you are male, ALL gay men want you.
But it's true! Look at my pasty white skin, disgusting beer belly, and snaggle teeth! I'm one helluva catch!

Fucking douchebag police chief. I hope his dick explodes.
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post #50 of 66
7/2/09 at 3:31am
Sorry to further the derail but this thread confuses me. Only being able to buy alcohol form state operated stores? Curfews? Outright bans? Not being able to drink in public? Is this the US or 1970s Bulgaria?
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