Letters to the editor, Sept. 18, 2008

On bars and drunken driving

On August 19 the Dispatch contained my letter about how the bars serve drunks because that’s where the money is. You can’t make a decent living from selling a drink to a sober person who comes into the bar, or drink and dance lounge, or sports bar, has one drink and walks out the door. He is OK, but a bar couldn’t stay in business on his custom. The sports who get loaded are where the money’s at — people who drink enough to fill the cash register and make the bartender and the owner happy.

Now on the Dispatch’s front page Sept. 11 was the sad story of a young couple who apparently got drunk, probably in one of the local bars, crashed their car into a telephone pole and the young guy was killed. Will there be any inquiry into where they got drunk and if they were illegally served? Of course not, no one is going to harass any drinking place, least of all the police. Even a cop might get drunk in a bar and kill himself sometimes driving home.

Quite a few years ago, a Barstow officer finished his shift and started to drink in one of the spots on East Main St. He got drunk and when he was driving home through Lenwood, he must have sort of fallen asleep at the wheel, crashed his car into the side of a semi which was crossing Lenwood Road in front of him. The paper at that time even printed the name of the bar where he got drunk. They wouldn’t do that nowadays, would they? Might hurt someone’s business.

The way to handle this latest incident is to prosecute the 16-year-old girl to the fullest extent of the law. See, that means money for attorneys, work for the D.A.’s office, all that good stuff. Also there has to be counseling and remembrance sessions for schoolmates and buddies of the departed, a little more hypocrisy, you know. Every little bit helps.

Robert Annal, Barstow

Sludge forum coming

Things have been quiet on the Hinkley sludge dump front but things are ramping up again.

The board of supervisors have started work on a new environmental impact report after a judge correctly threw out the old one. The two main points that were faulty in it was the fact that it did not address the water issue and whether or not it economically feasible to cover the site. This is actually good for us because it opens the door for us to appeal on the issues we lost and we have already started that process. In the not to distant future we will have another comment period so stayed tuned and get ready to write your comments to the board of supervisors.

We also have another interesting opportunity in this election year. Candidates are having fundraisers, meet and greets and all sorts of activities. Why not attend a few of these, get to know the candidates ask them, nicely, about their position on the sludge dump? If enough us get the candidates talking about the issue the more allies we can get and we might get the representation we are lacking in San Bernardino.

One of these candidate events will be run on Oct. 7. HelpHinkley will be holding a candidates forum at the Hinkley firehouse. We will be inviting everyone who is running and giving them a chance to speak and for you to ask questions.

Steven Smith, Barstow