Olympic Spirits

Yes CJ, its story time with Gerry again.

Vancouver has often made me wonder about its low tolerance and non-acceptance of alcohol, specifically in public. The Police are quite proud of their tactics of dealing with dinking in public; they try to convince people to pour out their open liquor or face a fine. In a city whose cultural make-up leads one to assume that it should be more cosmopolitan and less prudish, the opposite seems to be true.

While we hosted the Olympics, we were treated to all kinds of quirky stories. One of my favourite topics was the New Amsterdam Café. The New Amsterdam is a store that sells paraphernalia for pot smokers. They have a lounge in which patrons can partake of their own stash; no weed for sale inside. 3000 plus reporters generate a lot of fluff stories. Converseley, the pot culture seems more palatable to police and public officials.

But back to our topic; there have long been concerns, from the police and the media, about yahoos coming into the big city from the surrounding cities, drinking themselves into a state of stupid, and then behaving badly. The police in downtown Vancouver are concerned about the young adults coming in from Moody, Surrey, Delta and getting into major piss-ups.

It’s a little odd for someone like me to understand. My parents were fairly European in bringing us up. We had wine with Sunday dinner in our teens, and they did not stigmatize drinking. Although Montréal does tolerate drinking in public, they do not have gangs of roving yahoos from the south shore destroying the downtown core every weekend.

We weren’t yahoos, but we also were not angels. There was some drunkenness happening, but taking a page from a previous blog, we did not forget our ethics. I don’t think drunkenness overcomes people’s ethics. After all, the saying is:”In vino, veritas”, not “In vino, stupid ass!”

When someone is tipsy they are liable to become goofy, silly, or even unable to speak without causing laughter all around them. But if they are not quick to overreacting when sober, they should be the same when they’re getting bagged.

What the police, I think, are basing their fear on, is that stupid will win out on the scale of Stanley Cup riots; 1993 in Montréal and 1994 in Vancouver. I believe what the Vancouver Police have attempted to do, in our very best Canadian-navel-gazing, is to prevent a repeat of these events. And it’s not just the VPD; for the Olympics, there is an Integrated Security Unit, with a large contingent of RCMP. Fortunately for the visiting public, the RCMP's mommy took away their Tasers.

Save for the opening weekend, the Police have closed all downtown liquor stores on the Fridays and Saturdays at 7:00 PM, during the Olympics. On closing ceremony day, they closed the liquor stores at 2:00 PM. Someone somewhere has decided that the yahoos only drink from liquor store purchases. Or perhaps the reasoning is that the purchases from the liquor stores, pushes people over the yahoo threshold.

Because there were only 22 arrests for public embarrassment, sorry drunkenness, they believe they were right in stopping liquor sales, in the downtown core. I don’t think so. After all, these are the same people who thought that sending Wayne Gretzky in the back of a pick-me-up-truck would not gather a crowd. Were these the drunken yahoos from Coquitlam, Langley, Burnaby…?

But don’t despair; when you think you have witnessed the epitome of anal retentiveness, along comes the IOC and VANOC. They have sent a letter to Hockey Canada to protest a major transgression. Gold medal women’s hockey champions, Team Canada, after having performed their entire medal and picture taking duties, and retiring to their dressing room to celebrate, were asked to return to the ice for a few more photos.

So back out they come grinning, wearing their Gold Medals, and bringing their champagne and beer. According to the Canadian Press, the “image that raised most eyebrows” was the sight of 18-year-old Marie-Philip Poulin with a beer.

Never mind that they train in Alberta, where the age of majority is 18, or that Marie-Philip is from Québec where the age of majority is never really even discussed; this is Vancouver, governed by King John of Furlong from VANOC, and we will not tolerate this kind of behaviour, even if you do score ALL the goals in the gold medal game.

Perhaps a trip to the New Amsterdam Café might mellow out some of VANOC and VPD/ISU. After all, it’s safe inside; you won’t have to worry about yahoos, with the liquor stores closed, and the 18-year-old women hockey players are getting sauced at Pacific Coliseum.

Maybe you should bring a snack!

Skål!