What do you get when you cross a control freak with an anal- retentive obsessive-compulsive? Just another aging yuppie -- and one of a growing number of puritanical "quality of life" nazis who, alas for us, can TOO easily afford lawyers and lobbyists. One of them, I'm sure, invented "forfeiture" as punishment. FIGHTING MISCREANTS WITH MUG SHOTS by Bob Wieder San Francisco Examiner, February 1, 1999 El Cerrito [California] -- Civic leaders in Palo Alto and Menlo Park [near Stanford University] apparently assumed they'd come up with a breakthrough in the field of the punitive arts. Citing a forgotten ordinance from the 1800s, they began to distribute photos of "known problem drinkers" so liquor stores wouldn't sell to them. Not everyone greeted this innovation with a joyful clicking of heels. Nitpickers, killjoys and legal scholars carped and complained that the procedure violated the Constitution in several distinct ways. It smacked of harassment. It presumed guilt without due process. And it was almost, by definition, discriminatory. None of this evidently carried much sway with city officials in Palo Alto and Menlo Park. They suspended the program not because of its implications for civil liberties and personal freedom, but because, doggone it, some of the photos they posted turned out to be of ordinary citizens with no known drinking problems. Presumably, once the authorities get their 8x10 glossies properly labeled, the program will gear up again. Constitutionally, our judicial system and a world of potential litigation aside, the truly eye-catching aspect to this ploy is that it doesn't zero in on public drunkenness or drunk- and-disorderly conduct --activities which are explicitly criminal infractions-- but on unpopular personal behavior. The reasoning seems to be: "You aren't breaking any law, so we can't lock you up, and the ACLU would be on us like lice in a henhouse if we tried public humiliation using the pillory or the ducking stool, drat the luck. But we can, by gosh, make it awkward and difficult and inconvenient for you to maintain those habits that we find annoying, improper or unpleasant." What a fabulous concept: para-punishment. Effectively barring people from engaging in perfectly lawful behavior if they tend to do so in a manner, or to a degree, that the citizenry considers to be unseemly and/or excessive. Just imagine how this principle could enhance our quality of life if, emboldened by the get-tough example of Menlo Park and Palo Alto, we expanded its application to cover all variety of acts that offend our sensibilities. For starters, consider these guaranteed crowd-pleasing crackdown measures: *Photos of known two-pack-a-day smokers will be posted wherever tobacco products are still sold, and they will be barred from buying same. *Photos of persons who are clinically "grossly obese" will be posted wherever food is sold. They will be limited to meals of less than 1200 calories in restaurants and fast-food outlets and will not be sold dessert items, snack foods or butter. Any clothing store that sells them a bathing suit or leotard is in big trouble. *Photos of "known habitual unhygienics" --individuals guilty of chronically objectionable body odor and/or unkempt appearance -- will be posted in subways and train stations and on buses, where they will be denied access to public transportation. *Persons identified as incorrigible "sonic polluters" for loud boom boxes will be photographed for "mug books" to be distributed to retailers. *Persistent and unapologetic "package rustlers," whose noisy snacking distracts other patrons in movie theaters, will be photographed by ushers, banned from snack bars and frisked for packaged food items. *Photos of motorists who habitually tailgate, double park, drive with turn signals on and/or talk incessantly on cell phones in traffic will be circulated to gas stations, which will refuse their patronage, and to car dealerships, which will be prohibited from selling them anything larger than a golf cart. Volvo dealers may not even permit them on the property. Golly, there's almost no end to the number of displeasing behavior that we could cut off at the source with the [Scarlet Letter] gambit. Sports fans who habitually sound air horns, paint themselves with team colors or wave those huge, vision-obstructing "No. 1" hands would be politely but firmly turned away from all sporting events. Kids who whip by you on wheels in malls and on sidewalks, making you flinch and drop things and generally feel like a fool, would be shown the door wherever rollerblades, skateboards or, in truly incorrigible cases, shoes are sold. And those rude and invasive skinflints who read over people's shoulders every day on public transportation? Well, they'd be in for an unpleasant surprise the next time they needed an eye exam or new glasses. Nitpickers will probably carp that these measures would be intolerable violations of any notion of justice. Bah! As they say in Palo Alto and Menlo Park, "Who needs justice when you've got a Polaroid?" _____________________ Bob Wieder is a freelance writer in the East Bay who often contributes political commentary to Playboy magazine.
