PA's NEW DRINKING LAWS By; John Burd I went in search of "innocent until proven guilty" and "the rights of the accused," but alas, the police take psycho logy also. There was no way they were going toleak out anything I could run with. "Enforcement is dis cretionary, it all depends on the officer." (1). In other words, the laws are there to make your life miserable; you can only hope that a "hardass" doesn't pull you over. Because I was given no room to suggest lightened en forcement, thenew topic will be to beat them at their own game. Now that a state senator has labeled this the alcoholic/druggie campus of the the state, we will have to be extra careful- he does have the clout to request a wee bit of extra enforce ment. To inform our non-Pa students: Posession: Alcohol- the end of May brought us new laws. Any minor found with or attempting to pur chase alcoholic bever ages will upon their first offence be fined between $158.50, lose driving priviledges for 90 days, 2nd offence, 1 year, 3rd offence, 2 years. If you didn't get your liscence yet, if will be held for that long. You could be caught walking and they will still have your liscence. Parties- If you're at a party that gets busted, even if you . eren't drinking, you are fined for possession as long as you knew the alcohol was there. (what magistrate is going to believe you didn't know alcohol was there?) Controlled Substance- We have 5 schedules. Schedule I drugs: fate decided in court -- (coke, LSD, her oine, peyote, mor- phine, etc. Don't get, caught with a schedule 1 drug. Schedule 5 is the lightest, they will probobly let you live. DUI-- You go to court, lose your licence for 1 year, fined no less than $3OO and go to driv ing school. Fines-- windshield obstruction (tossle, parking sticker) $42.50. Red lights, stop signs, driving too fast for conditions or speeding up while someone is passing ss2.so. Underage drinking transporting, pur chase, attempted purchase,or con sumption- $158.50 to $358.50. The points system: every traffic viola tion levies a cer tain number of points against your liscence. If your insurance company finds out, your premiums become superphenominal. If you chalk them up fast enough, they take your liscence. (Three points are dropped per year). So now that you are awake, lets discuss how to avoid the hassle. If you're in a fight, you can avoid an assault charge if the officer never sees a punch, leaving you with a much more acciptable "dis orderly conduct" charge. If you are sptted whistling by five stop signs, you will be fined for each, but the points 'ass ed against your liscense" will only be for one offence, three points. Tips: What you won't find in your home newspaper. Disclaimer: It's dangerous enough to drive sober. This is to inform those who may find thems selves in trouble in spite of past warning They need a reason to pull you over don't give thm any. "Don't be an idiot by yelling out the windows or hanging bottles out the win dows 'to see if you can get a piece"(l) Remember, that little green sticker says, "1 m up to no good". Though you would think that the cash w pump into the local economy would warrant a little respect. You'll strain your eyes looking for it. So when you are pulle over for such un pardonables as stop signs at lam, like my roommate, or going the next speed limit 15ft. before you're allowed (like me-1) pray it's a "good cop". 2) collect thi decade's allotment of charm and polite ness, and 3) use it. Throwing a party: There is no guar antee that enforce ment will be "beefed up", but why be the guinea pig? This info. is just as pert inent in your home town as it is here, so it will help either way. A special con sideration for around here is that this is a town of old codgers. No disrespect, but these people are Old. A friend of mine is afraid that their movie, banning success with "Th_e Last Tempt ation of Christ" went to their heads, and that they are now trying to ban youth. This Luzerene County is second only to Dade County Florida for its percentage of senior citizen population. Old people don't call you if your loud, they call the police. The moral - keep it down. If you actually con't on p. 6 Brett Heniss Well, here are the results we've all been waiting for. lexpected to get at least half of the surveys back with much more sophmore input, but didn't quite reach my goal. You guys really let your school down. The freshman females accounted for about 50% of the returned surveys. The freshman males were extremely lame and returned the least amount. I wonder if they even understood the questions. Here's what I got. The majority of the females have steady boyfriends and prefer that sort of relationship over dating. About 30% of the males have steady girlfriends, but 50% say they would prefer steady relationships. The results of the peopl who said they never had sexual intercour are as follows: freshman females -30%, freshman males -53%, sophomore femal 22%, and sophomore males- 8%. of the people who claimed they have had sex, the average number o partners was: fresh man females- 3, freshman males- 2, sophomore females-4, sophomore males-6. 84% of the sexually active claim to use birth control, and the condom and the pill are equal in pop u larity. Out of all the females, 6% say they have been pregnant. 67% of t people thought this survey was worthwhi I thank those wh participated in fil ing out surveys, bu hope to get more cooperation in the future.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers