This fall has been a very ‘active’ one at Pacechester that started with the story on Craig Scott, an aide that had a drunk driving mishap, and ended with illegal alcohol distribution by TCPL following prohibition in Pacechester and the resignation of the mayor.
Working behind the scenes, Mayor Andrade and other groups have offered little in the way of remedies for the problems that Pacechester seems to have with alcohol, which may have contributed to Andrade’s decision to resign from office.
Solutions were proposed, such as ignition locks and in-car breathalyzers to prevent drunk driving, however these proposals have still yet to come to fruition. What has come to fruition, though, is prohibition.
Proposed by the Pacechester government, independent of the mayor, the prohibition has been unpopular at best.
Evidenced by Deputy Sheriff Chris Nocket’s willing illegal distribution of alcohol at Pacechester, the prohibition is something residents are trying to work around.
While this may seem like the first breach of law at Pacechester this fall, Craig Scott’s lenient punishment following what most would have classified as a DUI falls into what could be, arguably, obstruction of justice.
According to the police report, Scott was almost two times over the legal limit, as indicated in the police report, however he was charged with reckless driving despite the clear knowledge the police officers arresting Scott possessed.
The following day, Mayor Andrade addressed Scott as a “close friend” and refused to comment on the evidence that Scott was under the influence. The case presumably continues to be delegated between law officials behind closed doors, though no update other than the release of Scott from the mayor’s office, which originated as a suspension, has been offered.
The Pacechester Coalition was certainly active this fall as well, hosting drunk driving awareness initiatives and proposing the aforementioned ignition locks and in-car breathalyzers. Though their message was one of anti-drunk driving, no developments have come forth.
Furthermore, organizations such as AndPizzetta haven’t even entered the discussion regarding alcohol at Pacechester. Following a claim of an underage customer that consumed alcohol at AndPizzetta, otherwise known as Jenna Clarke, AndPizzetta, instead of offering a clear message, denied ever even having the alcohol available at the time of the incident.
“All alcohol products have been completely removed from our menu,” said Morgan Hennessy of the reported incident at AndPizzetta, saying that”due to the county-wide ban” all alcohol products have been removed. It is unclear, however, whether AndPizzetta took this measure in accordance with the prohibition at Pacechester before the incident with Jenna Clarke, or after the incident had occurred.
TCPL has taken radical and sometimes illegal steps toward resisting the alcohol lockdown at Pacechester, enlisting Chris Nocket to distribute alcohol illegally throughout Pacechester.
“They’re completely ignoring the fact that there is no such law in the rest of the United States,” said Nocket in defense of the illegality of his actions. “We felt it was a violation of the constitution.”
It seems that no approach has gotten much done, for any organization at Pacechester, nor for the residents of Pacechester that are still seeing problems with alcohol present in their community. TCPL’s resistance of this ban has caused more problems than it has solved, encouraging others to take this vigilante approach to ‘fix’ what is, at it’s heart, a legal issue.
That is not to say that the organizations against irresponsible alcohol use (PCC, Mayor’s Andrade’s office,AndPizzetta, the Chamber of Commerce) have done any better. Following all the countless proposed solutions for this problem, none of them have been enacted as of this time, over 2 months later, and there is no end in sight besides prohibition.
On top of unfulfilled promises,a prohibition seemingly came out of nowhere as a blunt instrument for ‘fixing’ the issue, completely absent of the nuance a true solution for any problem, let alone one as complicated as one concerning alcohol, needs.
The backing of the prohibition by the aforementioned groups has shown, if not advocacy, at the very least compliance with the approach to criminalize Pacechester residents rather than deal with alcohol-related incidents in civil court as was previously done before the Prohibition.
The problem isn’t those who proposed the Prohibition, but who is content to let Pacechester residents suffer severe consequences on a criminal level while claiming they are ‘looking out’ for the interests of Pacechester residents, as all the groups such as the PCC and the Chamber of Commerce have at one time claimed to do.
Reviewing the past events and reticent responses by all groups to these serious issues, a pattern emerges of negligence and complacency to throw whatever sticks to fix the issues at Pacechester. While Pacechester residents voted in favor of prohibition, why was this even proposed? Why couldn’t groups look to change policy to make people feel safe enough from the dangers of alcohol, as prohibition is merely a last resort.
The outlook of Pacechester in the future looks to be going the same way, with nothing new promised and the problems of now resigned Mayor Andrade being passed on, due to her “inability” to make any serious changes at the level of Mayor. We at Pacechester are left with the aftermath, and are left again at the mercy of lawmakers with no bridge between such as mayor, with no interim mayor even being confirmed.
The future is uncertain, but groups at Pacechester should re-evaluate their messages and stances if they wish to protect Pacechester going forward.
