Response to "Raising the Bar"

Hermosa Beach is a beautiful place. Everyone wants to play and party there, but what happens after the bars close has no place in the well-known and well-respected beach city.

Does a man need to drink himself silly in order to have a good time? Is it in the best interests of those who live and work in Hermosa Beach that they must contend with deviant public drunkenness at length every weekend? Every year Hermosa Beach peace officers must displace time and resources to handle public drunkenness, urination in public, and drunk driving. In 2009, the county as well as the city lost time and taxpayer money over a frivolous trial prosecuting two men for relieving themselves in public, but who refused to own up to their behavior. A jury of unrelieved peers found the wet offenders guilty, but the damage was done -- the public wasted its time and attention on private waste in public.

Jim Lissner's campaign to frustrate the issue of liquor licenses in the city is commendable and understandable. It is government's role to protect the rights and well-being of individual citizens in the community, not to frustrate private enterprise; however, free enterprise is no longer free to the extent that its sale and salience harms the public good.

If new businesses in Hermosa Beach reap a huge profit by extending the sale of intoxicating liquors in their establishments, perhaps they would also like to shoulder the cost of maintaining law and order in the city, too? Instead of stalling the acquisition of a liquor licenses, why not compel these establishments to pay the cost of clean-up and security on their properties? Why not affix a yearly city charge to combat the public disturbances that inevitably plague a drinking establishment?

Imagine the investment that Hermosa Beach would enjoy, knowing that the city's residential tax base would no longer be responsible for keeping the peace beyond the call of duty expected from sworn officers in a small community. Mr. Lissner would no longer have to appeal to the Alcoholic Beverage Control agency, because new regulations would either demand a firm commitment to public safety from future restaurateurs, or they would decline to seek a liquor license in the first place.

Hermosa Beach already diverts limited resources to handle outrageous and unnecessary conduct. The city is also investing limited resources to educate people about the danger of public drunkenness -- as if they do not know already!

Why not invest these funds toward supporting the struggling school district? Instead of bars for drinking, why not promote bars on sheet music, or monkey bars for children to play on? The Hermosa Beach parents and youth deserve the greater share of time, energy, and money which is currently diffused into maintaining public safety.