Hoboken QotD - Drinking Age
01
May
5/1/2008 Question of the Day:
Lower the drinking age?
Some states are considering lowering the drinking age back to 18. Since Hoboken is a town known for it’s bars and night life, would this be a good idea for Hoboken especially with the economy the way it is now?
Here is another video from Fox News Town Hall.
Hoboken, Drinking Age, Lower to 18
41. thebinatwork2 | May 1st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
devilgirl wrote:
I say don’t risk it…take away their voting rights till they are 30.
42. Easy-E | May 1st, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Isn’t this the part of a H411 thread when someone says something to the effect of “Well, it’s obvious you never passed econ 101 and know nothing of finance, banking, stocks”. Instead of pointing out why that is a bad idea.
43. bradykp | May 1st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
to bin….
why have speed limits? why have laws on drugs? why have laws on many things? why not let everyone police themselves? maybe some laws are easier to critique than others, but alcohol is just another drug, that some people believe affects more than just the person consuming it.
i’m not one of those people though. i personally don’t believe in a drinking age, i believe in very harsh laws on the negatives of drinking though. i understand why we have numerous laws, even if i don’t agree with them. why do we need a license to drive a car? why do need a license to purchase a gun? because we can harm other people if we don’t follow certain rules, so it’s to protect overall society. but where do we draw the line?
for drinking, i’ve been to enough countries that it’s part of the culture and “kids” drink. families share win all time in italian culture. they may have a drinking age now, but families still have wine with dinner.
anyways, my thoughts are…it’s taboo in our culture, and we’d need to change that. my dad shared beers with me, and my family had wine. it was never taboo for me, so i think i learned how to respect it a bit more than some other people.
but we’ll never get there unless we lower the age. should it be 18? 16? 12? none? i don’t know. but we’ve come up with this number over time….18….to define when people can do certain things. states have also established a driving age, states have different ages for that also.
i don’t believe the studies for and studies against garbage. there are stats to prove many points. and there just isn’t enough information out there in some of these studies. that’s not to say they are completely bogus, it should certainly be considered.
i’d be all for lower drinking age, but i hope they would strictly enforce public drunkenness and DUI checkpoints would need to be plentiful. also, if you drive drunk….you should lose your license for 12 months and have to completely retake the driver’s test. i think right now, you lose your license for 90 or 180 days. not sure. on top of losing your license, it should be something like a $2,500 fine. maybe more. not something that’s going to bankrupt people, but it needs to be serious. maybe 1 week in jail for people of younger ages. a month for people older. i’m just throwing numbers out of nowhere. but the point is, the rules need to be strict and needs to be enforced.
44. thebinatwork2 | May 1st, 2008 at 4:54 pm
“why have speed limits? why have laws on drugs? why have laws on many things? why not let everyone police themselves? maybe some laws are easier to critique than others, but alcohol is just another drug, that some people believe affects more than just the person consuming it.”
Is it possible it escaped you that the above laws apply to all adult citizens uniformly where as the drinking age does not? That is no small difference. Its a massive one.
45. Easy-E | May 1st, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Well we’re definately the minority in regard to drinking age…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_Act_of_1984
Doesn’t really go into why… MADD or something like that I think lobbied for it.
46. escaped68 | May 1st, 2008 at 8:31 pm
As kids we were drinking in the bars on river st.. I mean 14 and up. The only bar in that area that wouldn’t serve us was expolice chief labrunos father place,I think it was called the blue lagoon,and that was becuase of all of the illegal things that went on in there. In the 60’s hoboken was a wide open place and i don’t remember a lot of trouble with any drunken kids. The main problem was those asshole frat boys from stevens who had a few and wanted to take on the world but that was handled.
47. Easy-E | May 1st, 2008 at 11:09 pm
escaped68 wrote:
I’ll bet it was handled… Some scrappy kids knocking the hell out of a bunch of 20-somethings with beer muscles no doubt.
48. Katie_Scarlett | May 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 am
thebinatwork2 wrote:
There actually does not exist a federal right to vote…
49. bradykp | May 2nd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
thebinatwork2 wrote:
ok, that is a good point. they do apply to everyone. you’re not allowed to purchase cigarettes until you’re 18. same for an R rated move or NC-17 movie. How about buying pornography? there are definitely laws that apply only to a certain age group.
i say let people do all these things. no age restriction. i think i basically agree with you. i don’t think there should be any drinking age though. but i understand why they make these laws….it’s to protect (initially at least). i’d love to see the drinking age lowered or removed.