Last week as up to 300,000 people lined English Bay to watch the night sky light up, police were on the hunt for some of B.C.'s worst offenders - adults enjoying alcoholic refreshments.
"If you even look like you're going to take a drink, we'll be on you," RCMP warned spectators though media beforehand. "Just don't even think about it."
But it's time we did think about it.
In June, Victoria's bigwigs announced B.C. Attorney General Suzanne Anton was to begin consultations to modernize the province's liquor laws. It's the first liquor review undertaken since 1999 and our chance to chime in.
Hopefully we'll follow our French counterparts in Quebec who legally sip a glass from their favourite bottle over a picnic in a park. People are also "cheersing" in fields and on beaches in Germany, the United Kingdom, New Zealand or Japan.
B.C. is set up to axe its antiquated "no drinking alcohol in public places" law. The foundations are there. Police can arrest people for being drunk and belligerent in public and there are harsh penalties for drinking and driving. A change in the law won't result in some drunken apocalypse in which droves of slurring, stumbling, belching masses congregate in our parks.
If that's what you're looking for, look no further than our current system. Desperate to keep our children separate from evil alcohol, we corral drinkers into small, fenced-in pens. In these concentrated areas, where any possible poor behaviour is exaggerated, we force people to guzzle up before they are set free. The French Canadians would shake their heads. Just as life is too short to drink bad wine, life is too short to drink poorly.
Last Saturday, by the time the United Kingdom team shot its last firework, officers had poured 600 alcoholic beverages out, reported 35 liquor seizures and arrested nine people for being drunk in public.
Nine out of 300,000 people were stupid with their drinks - that's .00003 per cent. Do you hear that, Christy? I think we passed.
As the liquor law review gets underway, I encourage B.C. citizens to make their voices heard. Let our big parents in Victoria know that we're not vodka-sneaking 16-year-olds. And hopefully some day I'll step out from the shadows, shedding my travelling mug for a wine glass.
