Ninja bye law drafted by Dublin City Council

I see that Dublin City Council are currently revising the bye laws on liquor consumption in the fair city.

There’s a link to a word document (wtf? word, why word?) that has all the salient details. Here’s the definition of liquor:

“intoxicating liquor” means spirits, wine, beer, porter, stout, cider, perry and sweets and any fermented, distilled or spirituous liquor which cannot, according to any law for the time being in force, be legally sold without a licence from the Revenue Commissioners or any drink or other liquid containing alcohol.

What on earth is perry? And sweets – presumably liqueurs. I may have missed the liqueur problem on the streets. There’s aytin’ and drinkin’ in the them so where’s the harm.

Didn’t have the willpower to see if there is any provision for citizens arrest/ninja punches to the throat of any stumbling drunk that staggers over to me on the boardwalk looking for money. Or how about a headlock provision for the drunks that follow me into Spar begging me to buy them a sandwich.

I jest of course, I’d never punch anyone in the throat (unless severely provoked) and I will often give spare change when I have it, but there’s a certain very aggresive element to some of the drunks in Dublin and I’ve been intimidated by them several times.

Don’t know what big difference bye-laws make, other than serve to clog the courts up and waste Garda time. It would make more sense to invest heavily in accommodation for the homeless and treatment programmes for alcohol abuse instead.

Unfortunately, sense doesn’t come into things when it’s a lot easier to draft a word document and play god from a pokey office looking down on the Liffey.