Man threatened with jail, ejected from ball game, for asking his son to hold his beer

GLENDALE, AZ — A day at the football game turned into a nightmare for a father and son, thanks to oppressive beverage laws and overzealous prohibition enforcers ready to use them.

John Coulter and his 15-year-old son were attending an Arizona Cardinals game at the University of Phoenix football stadium.  They are season ticket holders and regular attendees.

John saw something he wanted to take a picture of and asked his son to hold his beverage for a moment while he reached for his camera.  A dangerous mistake.

Two undercover beverage cops darted towards him and began to exert their authority, granted by a bureaucracy called the “Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control.“  Their careers are based upon impeding the free market, eliminating free choice, and arresting people for drinking forbidden beverages.

“I thought it was a candid camera joke, I really did,” Coulter told USA TODAY. “We just watched the opening kickoff and I wanted to take a quick picture. I literally handed my son my cup and said hold my cup, I reached into my pocket, grabbed my cell phone, put it on camera mode and took a picture.”

“What you did was illegal, and I could have you arrested for it,” grunted one of the enforcers.  They wrote Coulter a criminal trespassing citation, and booted him and his son out of the game, showing the season ticket holders how the state handles people who hold beverages under an arbitrary age.

Coulter, in a most peculiar statement, says he normally supports enforcement of oppressive beverage laws, just not when they are used on him.  “I normally would support the police if I heard a story like this,” he said. “However, in this case, I was standing right there and I witnessed abuse and overzealous pursuing of this situation. I mean, it was totally uncalled for.”

Sgt. Wesley Kuhl of the Arizona Department of Liquor License and Control revealed just how oppressive the laws are.  “Providing alcohol to an underage person or an underage person in possession of alcohol is a Class 1 misdemeanor,” said the enforcer to USA TODAY.  Such an offense can land a person “two years in jail, $2,500 fine and three years probation.”

The AZ Department of Liquor Licenses and Control (DLLC) boasts in their 2012 Annual Report their “prevention of 1,715 incidences of liquor sales to persons under the age of 21, an increase of 88 percent from the previous year.”

The report goes on to reveal that in 2012, the bureaucracy performed 2,503 “routine liquor inspections,” 1,666 administrative counts charged, and 1,803 criminal citations issued.

The agency devours millions of dollars from the economy every year, calling it “revenue collected.  In 2012, that sum was $6,059,310, seized through fines and legal extortion.

In the last 5 years, the bureaucracy has denied the right to sell beverages to 82 license applicants.  Without paying fees to the bureaucracy and groveling for permission, business owners would thrown in cages, right along side the citizens arrested for letting their younger family members hold or drink beer.

The nation’s alcohol consumption laws are in dire need of reform.  And by reform I mostly mean abolition.   Why should free people be told what they are allowed to drink?  What makes it the responsibility of the state to tell people at which arbitrary age that they may drink a beverage of their choice?  Who really owns your body?

According to Alcohol Problems & Solutions, “The minimum legal drinking age varies dramatically around the world. Most such laws apply only to drinking alcoholic beverages in public locations. The only country with a minimum legal age for consuming alcohol at home is the United Kingdom, which prohibits drinking below the age of six.”

Many nations have no drinking age whatsoever, including Norway, Romania, Uruguay, Jamaica, and others.  Cubans under Fidel Castro have more beverage freedom than in the United States.

If abolition of the “drinking age” scares you, how about we at least lower it?  Countries like Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Malasia, Netherlands, and Switzerland all follow a drinking age of 16.  The less unnecessary police intervention in our lives, the better off we will be in terms of freedoms and retaining our hard-earned money.

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If you would like to provide feedback to the AZ Department of Liquor Licenses and Control, please contact them at the number below. But why stop there? Tell your congressmen, senators, and governors to abolish these freedom-devouring beverage agencies. Prohibition needs to end.

Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control
Website: http://www.azliquor.gov/Submit comments: http://www.azliquor.gov/contact.cfm
Director’s Phone: 602-542-9052
DLLC Main Fax: 602-542-5707