Friday, July 31, 2020

Dry Zones of Hamburg Story

The Coronavirus period is creating a lot of 'problems', and a lot of creative solutions.  I sat and read over a ARD article this morning involving Hamburg.

In the more popular neighborhoods of Hamburg, the city council wrote up 'bans'.....basically there's to be no outdoor consumption of alcohol between 8 PM and 6 PM on weekend nights (Friday, Saturday, Sunday).  Indoor consumption?  No problem.

To be a tool against social distancing violators?  More or less.

Now, you can assume, it's going to create a magnet for indoor drinking establishments, and more people mingling.  The idea of buying beer in the forbidden zone and walking two blocks outside of the forbidden outdoor drinking zone?  You could do that.  Remember....this is only for certain neighborhoods in Hamburg.

A violation of the Constitution?  Well, this got brought up.  There is a paragraph in the German Constitution which talks to 'general freedom of action' and buying/consuming a beer would generally fit into the Constitutional wording.  At the very least, this will be challenged in court.

No one says much over the police, but I would imagine that they aren't that happy over enforcing this ban.

Odds of this going away by mid-September?  I would suggest that.  

At the heart of this discussion.....you simply have a lot of Germans who were forced to stay indoors in the spring because of the Corona ban rules, and they've generally spent most of their patience already.....with a desire to 'cool off' with a beer in a public setting.  


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