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by skrebbel 422 days ago
The idea of a bar (ie a place people go to get drunk) with a dedicated parking lot strikes me as particularly bad for road safety. I'm baffled that this is not only encouraged, but mandated.

How do people do this in practice? Just drink and drive and hope they don't crash / get fined? Or does everybody bring 1 friend who sips colas the whole night?
2 comments
nonameiguess 421 days ago
Parking lots are not mandated for bars in the US, at least not everywhere. I helped my girlfriend's dad open a bar in Long Beach 20 years ago. The city required us to pay for the maintenance of three streetside parking spaces, but that was it. Pay the city. We didn't have to build anything that didn't already exist.
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Suppafly 421 days ago
>Parking lots are not mandated for bars in the US, at least not everywhere.

This, they are making the mistake that all the people on /r/askamerican do over on reddit. Laws like this mostly aren't nationwide or even statewide, they are decided on a very local level.

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vulcan01 422 days ago
We call the latter a designated driver [1] though as you can imagine sometimes the designated driver is "only" slightly drunk.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_driver

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skrebbel 422 days ago
Yeah but I mean, if everybody goes to the pub by car, does it mean everybody brings a designated driver? Or is this one of those things where everybody drives drunk but pretends nobody does?
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zhivota 421 days ago
Mostly the latter IMO. The most popular bar where I grew up is on a busy highway with no housing within walking distance. Parking lot reliably fills up every weekend night, mostly with single occupancy vehicles. You can do the math.
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alexfoo 422 days ago
Taxis exist.
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skrebbel 422 days ago
The parking minimum is for taxis?
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apocalyptic0n3 421 days ago
It's pretty common for people drive to the bar, get drunk, taxi/Uber/Lyft/DD home, and then return the following day to get their vehicle. I don't think it makes sense personally, but I also don't drink at all so I'm not a great judge here.
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robocat 421 days ago
Makes perfect sense if people are not planning on having a big night and then do.

You can see people taxi/uber into a place if they are definitely planning to get blathered.

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