Hearne: Police to KU Fans & Bars, Read Our Lips; No Open Containers

It’s that time of year again…

You can almost taste the jubilation. KU’s forging ahead in the NCAAs and the prospect of dancing in the streets is smack in the minds of Jayhawk faithful. To that end, a bartender at La Parrilla in downtown Lawrence told me the city and/or police enacted an ordinance or policy allowing bars and restaurants to let customers buy booze and take it to the streets.

Whenever KU‘s basketball team makes it into the Sweet 16 or Elite 8.Other customers added assurances that this was the case. It started in 2008 when KU won the national title.

Kinda makes sense, right?

So what does the long arm of the law have to say on the subject? Can revelers roam the streets, booze in tow, like in the Power& Light and on the dozen times each year Westport gets a "festival license"?

"Nope, it’s still illegal," says LAPD Sgt. Matt Sarna. "Of course when you have 60,000 people downtown all at once we (have limited) resources. But there’s no ordinance of that kind."

Loosely translated; pop out of a bar in a disorderly fashion, booze in tow you may do some slam time.

"We have 143 sworn personnel and we have other police come in and help us," Sarna says. "As a matter of fact, we had police handing out flyers today to bars and restaurants suggesting they use plastic cups. But we’ll still enforce the law on a case by case basis. And they could lose their liquor license if they let people carry liquor outside their businesses. No cans, no bottles – it’s still against the law to carry any kind of alcohol on public streets."

And that’s the rest of the story…