News item: The Mayor of San Diego Proclaims June “San Diego Craft-Beer Month”
Isn’t that just wonderful? What’s next? “Smoke a cigarette a day month?” Or…”Take your Dog to Work Month”, or “Change Your Motor Oil Month” or “Smoke a Joint month” or some other nonsense.
Maybe it could be “Have a San Diego Craft Beer and Get Behind the Wheel ” month. Or….”Help A Policeman Obtain His DUI Quota” month. This proclamation is one of the more ridiculous proclamations the mayor has endorsed. Here is a quote from the San Diego Union-Tribune in the paper on June 2nd, 2011:
“In the company of representatives from San Diego’s brewing industry — key personnel from Ballast Point, Green Flash, White Labs, and the San Diego Brewers Guild — the mayor named June 2011 San Diego Craft Beer Month.”
Why does that statement get my dander up? What is it that San Diego is promoting? What about all the other entrepreneurs in San Diego? When do they get their “monthly?”
Let’s say a visitor to San Diego takes the Mayor’s proclamation seriously. He goes to the store and buys a 6 pack of one of our own San Diego brews. He gets his family in his car and goes down to Mission/Pacific/Ocean Beach, etc. to enjoy the “Craft Beer Monthly.” He puts out his towel, sets up his umbrella, puts on his sunscreen, sits back and takes out a San Diego brew. The next thing he knows is that he is being arrested, ticketed, or any other thing the Officer can do to him, only because he did just what the Mayor endorsed.
I guess that if San Diego is no longer to be known as “The Finest City”, being classified as the “City for the Drunk” is just as innocuous.
Maybe July should be proclaimed, “Visit Your Local AA Office.”
{ 39 comments… read them below or add one }
Judi, funny funny funny. Actually, ‘take your dog to work’ day sounds okay.
Thanks, Joe. It just seems ludicrous to me to have this proclamation when I can’t even have a glass of beer on the beach – or in the park.
“Visit Your Local AA Office.” or “Cant drink on the beach in SD ” week.
I agree, I think I’d like having dogs at work. I worked somewhere with an office cat, it was great for morale.
I took my little dachsy to work with me for years. He got along real well with everyone… except my boss! :)
I’ve got 4 office cats – they’re great when they’re not sleeping on the printer and causing the copier to jam with cat hair…we tried having an office pitbull for a few weeks, but he didn’t mix well with the cats, and the girl that owned him decided to move to Vegas. I’m thinking of introducing an office shelter mutt one of these days…
Cheers cheers to that!!!
Great article Judi
And I’ll be happy to toast you with one as soon as we get together. But…you can’t drink and drive.
Judi, it’s not ‘you can’t drink and drive’, actually you can’t be impaired from drinking while driving. As a criminal defense lawyer, I’ve seen the in’s and out’s of the DUI laws. The issue is not drinking and then driving, the issue is whether by drinking (or taking drugs – even legal, prescribed medicines) one gets so messed up – “impaired” – that they can’t drive safely.
Maybe it’s just me, but what’s the big deal? We live in the epicenter of the craft beer movement and are able to claim as our own, some of the finest breweries, not only in the country, but in the world. We should be proud that we have risen to the top of the industry.
And I’m not so sure there’s a connection between craft beer and beach drinking. Pretty much the vast majority of beer consumed on the beach in those halcyon days were of the non-craft variety.
Copy that…. Cheers!
There is a growing alcohol problem in San Diego. Youth are returning to alcohol as their drug of choice because they cannot afford the price of other drugs. There are accidents daily caused by drinking. Are we encouraging people to go out to drink and then get in their cars to drive home? There is a connection between any kind of beer and beach drinking. You drink what you like – or can afford. It “craft beer” is the cheapest at the market, then that is the beer of choice for many. It doesn’t matter. We are enabling people to drink, because the major has given his permission. There are good breweries in many parts of the world; in many parts of California. I don’t need a proclamation to purchase the product. There are many other worthwhile businesses in San Diego that should be highlighted. Ask a MADD member what they think about the proclamation.
Craft beers are never the “cheapest on the market”-FYI. Also I can assume that the Mayor is not in favor of driving drunk (who is?), he is just placing credit where credit is due.
Well tell a MADD members if they really want to have an impact get the City and SDPD to set up DUI checkpoints outside Petco Park or Qualcomme after Charger games ….
+1. I like having the trolley within walking distance to Petco, a cab ride is much cheaper from Old Town – even cheaper if I can catch a ride to the trolley on the way to a game.
1) First of all, the Craft Beer makers in San Diego are world renowned for the high quality product they produce. It’s an art form with a long history, one that was almost wiped out by the monopoly minded Mega-Brewers. Yes, it’s also a business, one that provides employment for hundred of San Diegans and doesn’t involve making stuff to kill babies for the Imperial War Machine.
2) If you think craft beer is cheap, you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about. Good hops and small scale brewing is expensive and these beers are priced accordingly. People drink them for the taste. Most of the time people drink cheap crap they can’t taste to get drunk.
3)to say Mayor Sanders is “enabling” people to drink is falling prey to neo-prohibitionist rhetoric. Our country tried banning booze once. It didn’t work. Don’t encourage people with that agenda.
4) I don’t drink. I don’t like drunks on the beach. I say that we as a society need to have a grown up conversation with ourselves and our children about our collective urge to get high, whether it’s by pot, booze or religion.
5) And I will also say that Mayor Sanders is hardly my favorite politician. But this time he was right. San Diego’s craft brewers should be celebrated.
Why do people drink beer? They don’t drink because it tastes good; they like the buzz that accompanies the beer. The fact that some taste better than others – especially on a hot day, does not negate the fact that there is alcohol in the beer.
I KNOW that craft beer is not cheap. I prefer craft beer when I drink beer, but I do not like the idea of proclaiming San Diego Craft Beer month.
I don’t know Doug – “world renowned?” By what standards? And…it can be made to kill babies, as well as others too. How many people have only one beer? Very few, I am sure. One leads to two, and before you know it you have a drunk on the road. I suspect that people drink craft beer to get drunk as well as the cheap beer.
I resent your comparing my comments with the “neo-prohibitionist” movement. I am in no way suggesting that we ban booze; rather just the opposite. I just don’t feel, no matter how good it is, that an entire month should be devoted to telling the world that we celebrate these brewers.
I totally disagree with you re: Sander’s proclamation. Just look at his picture at the top of the article. This is not the way I want my mayor portrayed.
“They don’t drink because it tastes good”
I have to respectfully disagree with that. There are many beers I would drink if they didn’t have alcohol in them, and many that I won’t touch even if I wanted to get drunk. Usually I will have a single beer, just because I enjoy the taste and don’t want the buzz.
I’m with you, Patty. I like a good ale with a meal better than wine sometimes, and on its own too, and for the taste, not for the buzz.
I’m sure the mayor’s intent is to promote the industry here in SD, but what will the wine owners think about that, and I suppose some young adults will point to this as an excuse to drink, but then again, I doubt many read the paper anyway.
I must disagree, Beer tastes very good. If I want to just get a buzz I can do that with hard liquor faster and cheaper.
okay everybody dismount from your high horses. there is so much else out there on land that you landlubbers can get stirred up about. i think judi is funny, doug has a point, and i drink beer because it tastes good.
bsb – Yeah, that happens a lot around here. It’s a common joke amongst Ragsters that there won’t be a single comment to some post about the real end of the world, yet there’ll be dozens or more on some article about booze. (Remember Mary Mann’s post on the bars and clubs of OB?)
Well I drink craft beers for both the taste AND the buzz. Craft beers tend to have a much higher alcohol content than standard corporate brews. Some over 12 percent. The Pizza Port up in Carlsbad has their annual strong ale fest and they’re called strong ales for a reason, so yes I very much agree that people drink these for the buzz. They also drink them for the taste as they really do taste better than standard big brews.
Yes, we have world renowned beers that are considered among the best in the world in their style. Speedway from Alesmith is considered one of the best Russian Imperials in the world. Alpine has put out some IPAs, Exponential Hoppiness for instance, that are considered amongst the very best in their class in the world. And of course Stone has changed the entire concept of beer making in this country and is currently trying to get a foothold in Belgium. Port, Green Flash etc etc. It’s exciting to live in a region that produces such a fine product.
I can’t imagine how anyone can possibly condone drunk driving, but I didn’t see where the mayor encouraged it, however. If our fine city was among the world renowned grape growers in the world, a la Napa, wouldn’t we celebrate that fact as well? It’s not a license to get trashed on wine, or beer, just to celebrate our pride in a wonderful industry.
Well, of course, Jerry Sanders wouldn’t condone driving drunk – he’s a former cop and police chief. But like many people he likes a brew now and then. This way, he won’t have to drink alone.
I heard somewhere Stone was coming to Liberty Station.
I read the same thing last week…they’ve also taken over a local organic farm to produce food for their Escondido restaurant outside the brewery and the first stand-alone restaurant that’s going in at Liberty Station. I can’t wait – I’ve been wanting to try their restaurant since it opened, but Esco is a long drive just for dinner.
After reviewing all the comments, I’d say Judi stirred up a light weight hornet’s nest.
Let us all chug some beer in honor of Kevin Faulkner and Carie Nation.
Craft Beer or the other kind?
Any and all kinds as we think back to when we could have a cold one as our feet got wet from a wave, as we watched the sunset. Before Kevin fell in love with Carrie.
Stone is coming to Liberty Station…the Beacon has a fine piece on the 17k sq foot location to open in 12 months…
Judi,
Thanks. I understand exactly what your point is, and agree.
Sanders, the City in general via Economic Development/DSD/permits, and the State ABC definitely seem, through the various means of their offices, to be working in concert to promote drinking, which is to say, to promote drinking-related business revenue. The City is currently doing everything it can to promote and support business, and you’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to not notice that the 21- to 30-somethings spend a lot of their disposable income on alcohol. Witness the nightly helicopters at bar closing over our older neighborhood commercial zones (sadly, these lie adjacent, within a block or two, to residential zones, and thus the drunken disturbances are a great nuisance). There are Internet beer blogs, beer-transport bar-hopping shuttles, and endless PR hype over beer and alcohol in the local alt weekly mag.
Besides being a nuisance in general in our neighborhoods, via their behavior and focus on alcohol, the 21- to 30- to 40-somethings are on a path to alcohol dependence and alcohol-related disease, and to being 40- to 50-something alcoholics. The brewery and bar owners are being given carte blanche in a time of recesssion, when people tend to drink more. When a commercial property stands empty, the lure is to allow alcohol vendors to move in (Stone Brewing) in an already alcohol-saturated area, or stay open later (Blue Foot). This is having a negative impact on the quality of life throughout San Diego neighborhoods.
Pathetically, Sanders’ homage to alcohol producers/purveyors (it’s only about money) is about as sincere as the “Bill Anderson Day” declaration in Council last week. (Planning’s Anderson, as any insider knows, was fired.)
Hey, Dorothy. Where have you been since I first wrote this article? You put in much more succinctly than I did. Thank you for the help.
What da ya say that sometime next week we meet at the local pub and toast a few and discuss “our” article?
Oh, thanks, I’ve been busy working! Surfing the local news is a luxury for which I’ve little time, but I eventually catch up.
I’ll have to pass on the pub. I usually just sip a wee bit of wine at home when I’m cooking, like Julia Childs. But cheers! And keep up the great posts.
Does any one else besides me see the irony in the Mayor’s proclamation and the special report in Sunday, June 12, 2011 PARADE magazine? In case you missed the headlines on the cover page it reads: “SPECIAL REPORT – TEENS AND EXTREME DRINKING”.
“An alarming new trend every parent needs to know about”
“Skoal”, Mr. Mayor.
Hey! Not only has the major given license to drinking, look at this article that was posted on AOL. Kids, you want to buy liquor for your Dad for Father’s Day? Check this out:
http://news.holidash.com/2011/06/08/fathers-day-gifts-whiskey-tips/?a_dgi=aolshare_email
I know it would be hard for you to believe, but mother often buy the presents for dads and the kids make the cards. I also bought Father’s Day and Mother’s Day gifts for my parents when I was an adult.
Not hard to believe at all. I always bought Father’s Day gifts for the children to give to Bob for the holiday. I don’t think I ever bought them a bottle of liquor to give to him; nor, as adults, did I ever suggest it. I just think the article is out-of-line, UNLESS it is a suggestion for an adult. But no where in the article does it mention age, unless it is for the liquor.