9 thoughts on “Council poised to consider banning public alcohol consumption in parks”

1. This ban would create 2 problems:
   1. Think of all the people who will just stay in the water just because they are safe to drink there. I can just picture the article in the paper saying “Joe College-Student drowned in the San
   Marcos River because he was drinking and too afraid to get out of the river due to law enforcement patrolling the parks.”
   2. The red cup policy will only lead to an increase in the amount of trash we see along the river. Everyone knows how windy San Marcos can be…and unless everyone keeps their beverage full at all times i can see the wind dumping countless plastic cups into our beautiful river.

   In my opinion the only change that needs to be made is an increase in the fee for those who choose to litter and pollute our river.

   **I fully agree there are parks (like the children’s park) where alcohol should not be allowed, but a city-wide ban would just be ridiculous and a waste of time/money.

2. Sounds like more trash IN the river rather than beside it. Bad idea.

   I’d also note NB is in a very different situation. Their ordinance has nothing to do with protecting the river. They’ve built a lot of expensive homes along the river with residents (voters) who don’t like the floaters, AND they make a lot of their tourist income off schlitterbahn rather than floaters. They passed a paradigm changing ordinance that effectively stops all floating on their rivers. That pushes the demand elsewhere. SM should be reaching out to grab that income rather than pushing it away.

3. I would like to see a law forcing the covering of knees. We can’t go out to the river without seeing knees. Cover up those knees folks.

4. Yeah why not change from recyclable aluminum that the city and clean up crews can sell at a profit to crappy plastic cups littered everywhere that can’t be sold for anything. You council folk so smart. Thomaides must have a deal with SOLO cups through his water filtering buisness.

5. It doesn’t matter what you do. With NB banning everything you are going to have a mass of people in the water drinking. No one was floating the river in NB. They sat in the water on tubes with floating radios and drank. There will be a mass of bodies from city park to rio vista this summer. Red cups and beer cans will both be sinking to the bottom and when they are finished drinking at the river they will be downtown drinking till 2am.

6. I think the council should look very hard at this proposal. As it is a good idea, to keep our parks safe, but to give the Marshals a vague law to enforce that is like a moving target that could be missed is just waiting for trouble.
   The idea that the Rangers will just use their personal discretion to or not to enforce a vague law puts them and the people in a bad situation.

   “The key is that most people, if they’re going to take the opportunity to put it in a red cup, typically aren’t the people who create the issues that Ken [Bell] and his group have to deal with. It’s the ones that come down and sit on the rock with their 24-packs of beer” that the law targets, parks board chair Steve Santos said.

   It sounds like, as Santos states,that the Rangers have figured out the specific problem. So they should get the wasted guys sitting around with the 24 packs out of the parks and give citations to those that are littering, problem solved.

7. I see what they mean. They guy with the 24 pack of beer will be a promble in about 2.5 hours when he finishes them all. I have been around the Comal River and believe me we dont want that party scene here. Oh but wait it goes on every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights in the apartment complexes around town.

8. Sammy, while recognizing the irony in your statement, this was a college town before any of us were born and will be long after we’re dead. That party scene aspect will always be predominant. Fighting it is just like trying to will the river to flow upstream. It can’t happen. We’re better off making lots of money off it like Austin or New Orleans do.

   We need reasonable rules laws that’ll keep people from getting hurt. The only thing this law would do is push the activity a couple miles downstream. That means more drunk driving through our city & more litter in the rivers. There are plenty of laws to address public intoxication, disturbing the piece, and fighting. Why don’t we focus on the very narrow group of troublemakers and their behavior rather than creating new laws that hurt everyone?

9. Here we go again! Just make some zones alcohol free, not all the parks! They are there for us to enjoy as long as we keep them clean and respect them. And don’t take away the bbq grills either. They are already there! Put shoes on if you are worried about hot coals, jeez!