Nanny Government - From the Right?????

Every time I think "ah I live in a red state...life is good", Senate President Mike Waddoups (R?-Taylorsville) opens his mouth and proves once again that not all the "nanny staters" are democrats!

A proposal to scan the driver licenses of bar patrons and keep it on file in a state law enforcement database is a good start, says Senate President Michael Waddoups, but he wants to see the program go further.

Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, says he wants to see the database idea start with private clubs, but extend to restaurants that serve diners beer and liquor.

That would greatly expand the scope of the data collection and create a new requirement for restaurants, which are not required to have people sign up as members in order to serve beer and liquor. There are fewer than 400 clubs and taverns and nearly 1,100 restaurants licensed to serve alcohol...

But the governor and bar owners have expressed concern toward a bill that Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem, is crafting. He would store the information in a central database that law enforcement could access for accident investigations or in the event of a traffic stop.

There are so many ways where this is wrong, wrong, WRONG! First and foremost, is the fact that we are scanning law abiding citizens information in order to give law enforcement an "excuse" to look for them later. It is a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. What law is the "sober driver" breaking? Last I looked, going to a club and having a coke or two was not illegal. Nor is going to a bar to have a beer illegal - as long as you do not get behind the wheel of a car. What business is it of Senator Waddoups or the State Patrol, if I go into a club to see a friend's band? As long as I do not get behind the wheel of my vehicle after getting a blood alcohol level of 0.04 I am not in violation of any law and am therefore exempt from search. Just because I was on the premise is not reason enough to pull me over! I must display some sign of impairment before the police have the "probable cause" to stop me!

"In a restaurant, if they're serving alcohol, the person ordering the alcohol should show the ID," said Waddoups, who was receiving a demonstration of the license scanners after the Legislature's budget meeting Friday. "At some point, the restaurant would feed [the information] into the central database."

I have no problems showing ID to get an alcoholic beverage - that IS Constitutional law. Storing the data for future use by "law enforcement" however crosses the line!

Tom Guinney, a partner in the Gastronomy family of restaurants which includes Café Pierpont and The New Yorker, said the mandatory scanning of restaurant patrons' licenses to add it to a central database would be "an absolute customer relations fiasco."

That an understatement. Imagine the outrage of a tea-totaling grandmother getting "carded" - or the very obviously pregnant mother of a toddler - just because they walked into Applebees for lunch with a friend. Or the attendees of a business meeting that is held over lunch at Em's? How happy do you think these folks would be having to produce an ID even though they were not ordering alcohol? And all of you "libertarians" out there?

Then again, this should not surprise anyone who has paid attention to politics in Utah. After all, we are talking about the same Senator Waddoups that thinks that Utah parents are too dumb to tell their children about the dangers of alcohol and that Utah children are too fragile to even SEE an alcoholic beverage being made....

Waddoups has already objected to restaurants that he said are becoming too much like bars. He has advocated for requiring restaurants to prepare drinks and store alcohol away from where diners might see it.

Here's a hot tip for "Nanny" Waddoups....big government intervention into the lives and businesses of law abiding citizens is NOT a conservative principle! It is not a Republican principle and it is most assuredly NOT a US principle! The Founding Fathers rebelled against this kind of British intervention. Will it need to get to that point with the you?