It started with a beer bottle...

[depechemodefan]

I was at the third floor reference desk when I hear a bottle falling onto our floor (the floor has some type of rubber tile). I look over my computer and see an older man my cw was helping leaning over to pick up the bottle. The bottle was an empty budlight (or some brand of beer) bottle.

I tell him he can't have that in here. He says he needs it for protection because there are evil people in the world. So here I am, trying to get security when of course everyone needed help. One woman wanted to know where the catalog computers are located. I show her and I pass by a guy using the microfilm who needed help. He has the film on backwards, so I start trying to right it up, and I finally told him I will be back, I have to call security.

I was surprised they cared. I figured they would say, "oh, if it's empty we can't do anything about it."

I come back and he tries to give me the bottle to throw it away. He tells me he needs it for protection from evil people and he starts to swing it like a club. He throws it away

We do have a cop on the job here so he came up and took the guy downstairs. At the same time my cw came back with a book the guy requested from storage (Truman Capote's In cold blood).

Cop latter tells me the man had 3 empty beer bottles (the cop retrieved the one in the garbage), a 1/2 lb rock, hard-core porn, and some of our books and magazines. The guy said about our books and magazines in his bag, "Those are not mine!" Um, yeah.

So he gets to spend Thanksgiving in jail, probably get out on Fri. He is arrested for having opened bottles of alcohol and public intoxication.

[Jester]

Security should care, as empty beer bottles can be and often are used as weapons, not only as a club, but if broken, as a makeshift knife. I am all too familiar with this, as I had an idiot try the second one on me a while back. He was arrested and part of his plea deal was, believe it or not, that he would leave town (more or less).

The fact that he was interested in In Cold Blood in and of itself is not worrying (I have read it), but that combined with the other details is rather alarming, considering the book recounts the true and very cold-blooded murder of an entire Kansas family by two drifters. Both of whom seemed more on the ball than this nimrod.

[Bliss]

Meh here most beer bottles are designed to shatter on all impact because using them as knives is too common.

[Red_Dazes]

He is arrested for .... public intoxication.

...You mean "Being drunk in PubliCK" as tatter salad would say... :P

[elsporko]

I think security is justified in not going after people with empy bottles. There are quiet a few people who like to pick bottles up and return them for the deposit.

[Jester]

There is a difference between someone picking up trash to tidy up or make some money at the recycling plant and some yahoo waving around a beer bottles in a library.

Security absolutely should go after the second. I never said they should go after anyone who happens to have a beer bottle....but seriously, how many people are going to have empty beer bottles at a LIBRARY that are NOT complete fucknuts?

[MilitantLibrarian]

Scary moment

I was approached a while back at our reference desk by a customer who said that the guy sitting next to him had a "blade". Instead of immediately calling security, I went over for a surreptitious look. Lucky I did, the guy had a small "pencil sharpener" blade, which while it could be dangerous was not quite of the magnitude the customer who'd warned me had suggested. It turns out that what this guy was actually doing was slicing a coupon for free yoghurt from one of our newspapers. We eventually did ask security to escort him out, and sellotaped the coupon back in so that the story on the reverse side could still be read. It was 20p for the newspaper for yoghurt worth maybe £1.50, so he could have got a bargain even if he'd BOUGHT the damn paper. Customers have been known to walk out with entire newspapers saying that they pay their taxes and are entitled to them. Hopeless

[jedimaster91]

It never quite ceases to amaze me how many people are completely and utterly wasted by 9am. -_-

[DGoddessChardonnay]

...You mean "Being drunk in PubliCK" as tatter salad would say... :P

Obviously he didn't have the sense to be drunk in a BAR.

But there again, he may have been drunk in a bar and got thrown out into pub-LICK.

Either way, drunk in pub-LICK is never a good idea. If you're gonna get plastered, do it at home where you're safer.

[infinitemonkies]

It never quite ceases to amaze me how many people are completely and utterly wasted by 9am. -_-

One of the few problems I have with working the graveyard shift is when I feel like having a few drinks after work.
A.) there aren't any bars open at 8am, and
B.) It's hard to find 8am drinkin buddies (once you're out of college anyway)
Also, most people who would like to do some drinking at 8am are not people you wanna hang out with.

[Jester]

there aren't any bars open at 8am, and

I am sure there are SOME bars open at 8 am. Every place has that kind of bar. At least, that's been my experience.

The question is, are they the bars you really want to be in at 8 am, or at any time for that matter?

While there are lots of places here in Key West where you can get a drink at 8 am, there is an established drinking culture down here. Back home in Phoenix, on the other hand, 8 am bars tend to be of the shadier, seedier variety.

[KymmyKyller]

I didn't read through the whole thing but I will say this:

Any form of glass bottle; empty or full without a cap can and will be used as a weapon by someone out there. The other night? Brawl from hell happened while I was at the park. Glass bottles were thrown from one side of the brawl into the other people's side.

They're dangerous and security should care especially if someone says, "evil people, need protection" because wasted or not, they may just use that thing.

[infinitemonkies]

I am sure there are SOME bars open at 8 am. Every place has that kind of bar. At least, that's been my experience.

The question is, are they the bars you really want to be in at 8 am, or at any time for that matter?

While there are lots of places here in Key West where you can get a drink at 8 am, there is an established drinking culture down here. Back home in Phoenix, on the other hand, 8 am bars tend to be of the shadier, seedier variety.

Everywhere I've ever lived in Canada, it's illegal to serve alcohol between 2am and 11am. I know of one chinese restaurant that will serve until 3am, but they stop letting people in after 1am. In fact, out here, last call is generally around 1:30 am, and if you aren't done by 2am, you arent even allowed to finish your drink; the bar is legally required to confiscate and dispose of any unconsumed alcohol.

There's a sports bar right near my place that I like, and they successfully fought the governing body to amend their license to allow them to open at 10am on sundays for the NFL games, but even then they still arent allowed to serve until 11.