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Long Island Rail Road bans alcohol on some weekend trains
I enjoy having one or two glasses of wine or beer with dinner or when out with friends. That said, the Long Island Rail Road’s action hardly constitutes a return to the Temperance Movement. It is a reasonable response to too many people not being responsible alcohol consumers. Long Island Rail Road patrons are still free to enjoy alcohol in their homes, bars and other places.
The Temperance movement is alive and well in the US. Hey, the US is the only industrialized western country to ban alcohol altogether, so why not keep the momentum going.
Ah!, for the “good-old-days” of the “Cannonballs”! Wimps rule!
I knew that the Long Island had some slow tains but, I didn’t know they had any overnight trains. Are there any sleeping accomodations available?
Just remember who owns that railroad. That’s right. Big government. Don’t like it? Too bad. New York gets exactly what it wants. Big government thinking for the people too lazy to think for themselves.
The LI isn’t talking about responsible drinkers here. As usual, it’s the few who spoil things for the many. Few things are more obnoxious than being harrased by a drunk aboard a train or on the platform. Thanks for having some guts, LI, despite the push back you’ll get.
Midnight to 5 AM only and only Fri. & Sat.
Prohibition returns!
We know there’s a cloned Capone out there. Woe upon us.
“Big government…New York gets exactly what it…”
That writer may have been the victim of a wedgie which cut off the blood supply to his adjacent brain.
This reg. gives the police a tool to keep drunks under control without having to prove a level of alcohol’s influence. Ride a car with an obnoxious drunk—enjoy it, writer.
'Rode LIRR Babylon trains after night games at the Polo Grounds with my father with TV program cast members and, once, a drunk who grabbed me as I walked the aisle. Age 11. Dad beat the crap out of…because of where I was grabbed
They don’t have any “overnight” trains in the sense of Amtrak. but there are trains that almost fit that bill. They have one that leaves Jamaica around 1 AM, arrives Montauk around 4, then turns for a roughly 5 AM return to Hunterspoint Av, getting in about 9. Long night in a coach seat!!! That said, they do have trains that originate in Penn Station, Brooklyn and Jamaica through the night. I think the longest gap with no trains is about 90 minutes.
I can understand MTA reining in the late night drinkers. Some of them are a danger to themselves and others. What I think will be a problem is if they ever decide to push this on the evening rush crowd. I have not ridden the LIRR in rush hour in many years, but my recall is that the bar carts sold their wares right on the platforms prior to being wheeled on the train, where they opened up as soon as they could get set up. Those people like their homebound hooch. Of course, I can also remember when the LIRR had cars with an actual bar in them. They were always fun. A lot of us brown bagged as well. Nothing like standing on the rear vestibule of an eastbound rocking through Queens Village or Carle Place while you pitched the empties out the back.
I’m curious to see how this is going to work with closed containers. Having alcohol is not illegal in NY, as long as it is not in an open container in public-that’s been a violation as long as I can remember. Just heading home with a 6 pack is going to get you thrown off the train?? I can see that one winding up in court.
“Big Brother” is back with a regulation which may or may not be legal. Whatever happened to common sense and decency?
Call a cop because someone is carrying a six pack? And what of the delyas while the cops come and sort out this bit of stupidity? A few more drunks want to help out their “buddy?”
A small riot, pepper spray, billy clubs, thank goodness this is not if Florida where someone will get totally out of control and get shot due to the “stand your ground laws.” Can’t anybody try and think these ideas through? So sad.
I don’t see any connection whatsoever between bringing a legally purchased beverage home from the market in a sealed container and being drunk and disorderly. That’s like saying bringing beer, wine or liquor home from the store in your automobile is the same as driving drunk.
I can understand a rule prohibiting the consumption of alcohol on the train, just like you can’t consume a beer while driving. Even if it’s your first and only beer of the day, it ain’t allowed. That rule works just fine. But should the transit police really be rifiling through people’s shopping bags and busting them for possessing a bottle of merlot? That’s just stupid and a waste of their time.
I might be consider going along with this rule if there was there was a chance in hell it would prevent incidents like Mr. Francis and others have described. But it won’t. The people in those cases clearly had been drinking long before they got on the train. This rule won’t affect that.
By the way, in NJ where I live, you have to go to a liquor store to buy beer. In PA you buy beer at a beverage store, and wine and liquor at a State Store. But in NY, you can by a cold can of beer to go at the mini-mart in Penn Station, a few steps from the LIRR platforms. No kidding.
Anyway, the ‘disorderly’ part is already enough to get someone arrested or kicked off a train. And if they believe someone is drunk, the testimony of the officer, corroborated by the conductor, is should be plenty to get a conviction. The courts blow through hundreds of these cases a month. But if they think it isn’t enough evidence, the days of having a suspect blow up a ballon, and having it tested later by a laboratory are long gone. A BACtrak Breathalyzer used by cops all the time costs about 200 bucks and fits in the palm of your hand.
And what’s the deal with the cutoff time? So now if I get on the train, legally, with my freshly purchased bottle of Bailey’s Irish