Member-only story
Pint Me on the Streets, Pint Me in the Stores
“When drinking is made a sin, the only point in drinking is to get drunk.”
Michigan Week. It starts on the third Saturday of May, the prettiest week of the year in Michigan: flowers blooming, grass green, weather temperate.
Michigan Week had been going on for 50 years. My hometown had the honor of being its “Kickoff City” for the past 45.
Which basically meant a lot of functions, mostly on Saturday: a parade, carnival, food booths, sidewalk sales, arts and crafts vendors, historical displays. All-day Saturday the downtown highway is closed to traffic while people stroll, shop, ride, eat, mingle.
The celebration is orchestrated by the Chamber of Commerce. It used to take place at the local high school, but the Chamber switched this year to downtown. I asked the Chamber Director about the change, and she excitedly listed the advantages.
When she finished, I added, “And the state law that prohibits alcohol on public school grounds is moot. Will you have a beer tent?”
“Oh,” she said, “people can get a beer at the Michigan Week Dance.”
The Michigan Week Dance takes place at night, on the outskirts of town. It is wholly detached from the main celebration.
Some people just don’t get it. They tend to view drinking as a separate activity and, always, a thing you do where the general public can’t see you.
“If you want to drink, you can go to a bar.”
“Or you can go to the Dance.”
“Or you can just stay home” (preferably in my basement, I suppose).
This is hardly the first time I’ve seen drinking pinched and pushed to the corner of public life. I could give many more instances from my hometown, but perhaps more telling are the liquor laws for all of Michigan.
As a business attorney, I’ve run across a variety of restrictions under Michigan law. People, for instance, may not bring their own alcohol to establishments where food is sold. People may not have open containers of alcohol on public streets (no walking to your neighbor’s with an open beer). There is also, of course, the general restriction on the number of available licenses in a geopolitical area…
