Liquor service in Ontario is a kind of local option confusion. Take the recent Ribfest in Babel. If the responsible party is the municipal government, we are annoyed. If the responsible level of government was provincial, we are doubly annoyed. It has been our experience that the municipal event planning people in Babel are not particularly expert in that function. They tend to be less than thorough in considering the ramifications of their events and rules. The provincials have fewer excuses for their errors. They are deserving of more lashes. These are the people who trumpeted through the news media earlier this year that they had eased the liquor rules for out-door events in Ontario.
If this is easing the rules, check this out.
Ribfests are a common summer event in towns throughout Ontario. There is a caravan of vendors selling barbequed foods to the public. This involves a range of products besides pork spare ribs. Whatever the product, you are guaranteed that you will end up smeared with the sauce and flatulent from the beans they sell you with the barbeque. What you need with it is large amounts of beer. It washes you down as well as the messy barbeque. Luckily, the event organizers have learned to provide copious amounts of paper towels.
What the organizers do not seem to understand is the thirst generated by the large amounts of spicy barbeque sauce. They have determined that you can buy just two plastic cups that can each contain just 5.5 ounces of beer. The two plastic cups are not even the equivalent of a bottle of beer.
But that is not the silly part of the story. There was a long line up at the only entrance to this event from the main street. The city had put up a huge fence around the entire city square. There was also just one exit—at the other end of the square. An event supposedly open to all had suddenly become restrictive. It seemed that the reason for the delay in passing people through the single gate was proving that they were of an age that they could legally buy an alcoholic beverage. Those passing the test were issued a wristband imprinted by the city.
When a garrulous senior objected to waiting in line,, he was told that he also needed the wristband. “Why,” he asked, “does someone who is obviously three times the age of majority have to have a wristband?” The security guard’s answer was that those are the rules. And that is bureaucracy rampant!
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