They'll give you a seat right in front:
"Thank you, driver, for getting them there; On these bus lines, the party starts and ends on board" October 29, 2011|By David Filipov and Matt Rocheleau, Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent
Thumping with nonstop 1980s techno pop, the garish former school bus rolled through Chinatown, a riot of New Wave pink, Pac-Man yellow, and blue disco lights that pulsated to the incessant beat. Two men the size of linebackers swung from a gleaming stripper pole, surrounded by 30 or so fellow carousers gyrating to the music and cheering them on. Beer flowed. Jell-O shots quivered.
It was not yet 9 p.m. The bachelor/bachelorette party of Brian Lordan and Dawn Macdonald was just getting started.
Keeping an eye on this rolling revelry from his rear view mirror was Chad White, 39, Air Force veteran, firefighter, and on this recent Saturday night, driver of the ’80s-themed bus belonging to The Bustonian, one of several Boston companies that rent out vehicles for on-board bacchanalia.
“For the most part, the police like us,’’ White said....
Really?
Such buses have become a popular means of pub crawling without walking and partying without driving. But these moveable fests have also drawn concern from law enforcement and neighborhood leaders, who see the buses as public nuisances that cannot be policed the way bars or cars are.
But they like you.
Party buses are regulated under the same laws as stretch limos or Greyhound buses, meaning that the state’s open container law does not apply to passengers carousing on board the vehicles.
The problem was highlighted by the recent arrest of an Allston man on charges of urinating out the window of a party bus on busy Newbury Street at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday.
So what's the problem?
Two Boston police detectives happened to see the act and boarded the vehicle, where they found “about 15 young males very intoxicated with beer cans all over the bus,’’ according to a police report.
The detectives did not detain the driver of the bus nor fine the company, which was not named in the report. The other morning merrymakers were allowed to ride on.
Superintendent William B. Evans, chief of the Patrol Division of the Boston Police Department, said he has been worried for some time about the buses, which have proliferated in the city over the past decade.
“We want to encourage designated drivers,’’ Evans said, but “it bothers me that we have this floating barroom going down the street.’’
But they like 'em.
*******************
Meg Mainzer-Cohen, who heads the Back Bay Association, said bar and restaurant owners welcome the business the buses bring when they stop and their patrons pile into local bars. But they do not always appreciate the bulky buses idling and blocking traffic in the neighborhood’s narrow streets....
Hey life is full of trade-off$, right?
The party stopped at a couple of bars where bands performed. The passengers entered the bars without paying a cover charge, part of a mutually beneficial deal the Bustonian has with clubs and pubs....
Oh, NOW WE KNOW WHY no one was ticketed and why they were allowed to go on their way.
This is my stop, readers.
--more--"
My problem is that I am a pure prohibitionist; if it is good enough for pot, it's good enough for booze.
And to those who say we already tried it and it didn't work: didn't try hard enough.
Now let's go fight that drunk, 'er, drug war!
How many potheads are pissing out of bus windows anyway?
