This past week, Q-line asked: Do you think a sobering center in Santa Monica is a good idea. Why or why not?
Here are your responses: ✆ “A drunk tank is ideal to help curb the problem of public drunkenness in Santa Monica. By definition, a drunk tank could include drug addicts who are high and people, because of their drunken state, accosting tourists, etc. They used to have a paddy wagon in the old days and what they would have are benches on the inside of the wagon. Each bench would accommodate six people. They would take them to the drunk tank, sober them up and then release them. This is an ongoing process. One further suggestion would be that as they sober up, you have a place like the Veteran’s Administration building to go to take care of their personal needs so that they can be rehabilitated...” ✆ “A sobering center is only a Band Aid and a small one at that. The out-of-control, expanding homeless and vagrant problem in this city never ends until the welcome mat of continuing hand-outs, public feedings and an overall permissive attitude stops. Everything else is lip service and obviously after years of practice, does not work. The conditions have only gotten worse.” ✆ “I think it would be an excellent idea for the city of Sanmalicious to have a sobering center because after all, alcoholism is a terrible problem. My late father was an alcoholic and I think it’s wonderful to have a sobering center.” ✆ “I do not think a sobering center is a good idea. I believe that these people who would be sent to a sobering center would have done so themselves if they had any will to do so. I think being drunk in public should be a criminal offense and they should serve their time in custody sobering up rather than be deposited in a voluntary center where otherwise they would not have volunteered.” ✆ “Deal with all the drunks instead of making a so-called sobering center. Build a nice big jail, put them to work all day and lock them up so they won’t be able to have access to alcohol. Once their sentences are up, they’ll think twice about getting drunk in public again.” ✆ “We do not need a sobering center or drunk tank. City officials should just use their offices or where ever they claim their offices are. They are all drunk with power already, creating rules we do not need.” ✆ “I think the best way to sober up the vagrants on the street is by holding their SSI checks and making them work for their SSI checks and if they don’t work, they don’t get their money. That would sober them up faster than anything.” ✆ “I do think it’s a good idea but I wouldn’t have the facility in Santa Monica. I would have the bay station where people would go in Santa Monica, being that Santa Monica is world famous for homeless as a place to go. There would be a shuttle that would shuttle the homeless to a brand new, state-of-the-art, multi-million dollar facility in Idaho where the rent is a lot cheaper. I think everybody would win. I think the residents and the politicians of Santa Monica could still pat themselves on the back and they would still feel really good...” ✆ “I think the sobering center is a good idea to put all of the City Council people in there if they plan to go ahead with the Macerich shopping center and that monster project. They should go to the sobering center.” ✆ “The drunk tank is a stupid idea. This is not Mayberry and the inebriates are not kin to Otis, Mayberry’s affable town drunk. This foolish thinking will enable freeloading street drunks to abuse Santa Monica’s generosity ever so much more. The claim to financial savings is hokum and hooey. The taxpayers will pay in dollars and in quality of life.” ✆ “I think it’s a very good idea to have a sobering center and first, they should put all of the members of the City Council in there until they come to their senses. They should sober up.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 25, 2004. Read the original PDF.