Lawyers in Las Vegas may work with new set of booze rules downtown

Let’s all be honest with ourselves, we love Vegas for the way it lets us walk down the streets downtown with a drink in our hands: it saves us from having to too-quickly down the rest of our beverage and saves us money by allowing us to savor our drinks (instead of hopping to another bar to buy a new one) and enjoy a leisurely stroll surrounded by lights and bustling businesses. But now, new rules initiated by the city may change that, or at least some of it, specifying that people can only drink from plastic cups, according to this Las Vegas Sun article. And with the silver state having one of the highest rates of legal representation for charges relating to intoxicated individuals, the new law means that lawyers in Las Vegas have to keep up.

The headline in the Sun article may have caused a scare to some Las Vegas enthusiasts, stating the city’s deliberation on an “outdoor ban on alcohol bottles, cans downtown,” but the lushes, upstanding and responsibly partaking citizens, average tourists enticed to the city by its allowance of open containers on the street, and lawyers in Las Vegas whose business depends on their occasional overindulgence should worry: there will still be booze on the street. Just in a different form. The new rule being considered by the City Council is aimed to aid police in enforcing another rule that prohibits “outdoor consumption of alcohol purchased from liquor stores within 1,000 feet of those stores.” And with everyone walking around downtown, bottle in hand, police are saying they have a hard time telling who bought which booze where.

Currently, six gift shop/liquor stores operate in Las Vegas downtown’s area beneath the enchanting electrified canopy. But no more! Or, at least, no new liquor stores can be built nearby. That is, except pharmacy and grocery stores.

If the problem seems to be a circuitous one with mostly futile solutions, hey, that’s something that we’ve noticed too, along with the lawyers in Las Vegas who end up representing the rabble rousers who rouse too much downtown. And it’s their rousing that has gotten the city and police force up in arms, or at least, up in legislation: there’s a “growing problem downtown with fights and other issues requiring police attention.” Law enforcement and city officials say it’s due to liquor stores.

Liquor stores say it’s the downtown outdoor bars’ fault. And “liquor stores might start selling plastic cups,” at least, according to the horrified predictions of one consultant working for The Fremont Street Experience. That, or “people will dig in the trash for plastic cups” after purchasing bottles from the liquor stores. Yeah, we know how classy people are while carousing around Sin City, but we doubt that digging in trash cans for plastic cups will really be necessary. The city’s numerous statues targeted toward minimizing drunken cavorting outdoors include limiting alcohol content in beers sold downtown and size of bottles, as well as liquor stores’ advertising in windows. Effective? Just ask some of the lawyers in Las Vegas who have a booming practice around representing individuals who love to imbibe.