I Live Next to a Bar

Yes, and anyone out there in Internetland who has also lived next to a bar can feel my pain.

Living near a bar or bars offers you a place to drink or play billiards if you are the type. You can hear bar bands playing covers of music that you may or may not enjoy hearing covers of. For example, no matter how many times I hear someone cover a song by the Doors, I find myself wishing that the singer of that band would suddenly be afflicted with a thousand frogs blasting out of his throat.

However, I generally feel that way about Jim Morrison, too, when I hear any Doors songs. Yes, I said it.

Anyway, bars can lend a festive atmosphere to any neighborhood on any night of the week (until about 11pm), depending on the size and population of your city. I used to live in a part of the Cincinnati Area where every single night there were very very active bars and clubs. And where I live now, it's mostly only active on Friday and Saturday night.

And honestly, considering the size of this town (anywhere from 2000 to 5000 strong, depending on who you are talking to), the Friday and Saturday nights are unpredictably intense. So much so that I am glad that all the other days of the week are practically dead. On those nights, only the old alcoholic farmer types are patronizing the place. But on the weekend, there are many Young People.

That's right. Young People.

And starting at around 11pm, the Young People become out of control. Now, I'm not going to say that the women "go wild" as was the trend of a few years ago, and may still be going on to this day, although I await the sad, sticky, scab-covered Girls Gone Wild bus, or the generic Party Party Girls van to pull up one day, as a last-ditch effort to inject some tired old town with an exotic nightlife and party fun.

But the kind of out of controlledness these people engage in generally includes "fistfights in the parking lot" (which is right outside my living room window), "vandalizing my neighbors' garden and property," "defiling the children's swingset with vile sex acts - right out there beneath a streetlamp in the backyard" (I cannot see this from anywhere in my house), "throwing beer bottles into the yard, making it a game to shatter them into the tiniest pieces possible," "urinating in the parking lot!" "fistfighting in the backyard," and "having loud, violent breakups with the girlfriend."

One night, an angry drunk man was spooked by the wailing of the police siren and darted through our yard, since it is of course a playground for the inebriated. Last night, I heard a man throwing up not once, but FIVE TIMES. Oh it was a pleasant serenade for my ears.

My complaints are mild, however, as compared to what I have heard my neighbors give. You see, how can I explain this.. If the bar, neighbors' house, and my house were all a part of a right triangle, my house is a whole hypotenuse away from the bar, which actually takes up the entire side, we will call it side A. My neighbor's house sits behind my house, for some odd reason that I will not go into here, and right next to the bar. It basically IS the right angle, my neighbors' house. So they are RIGHT THERE. And the bar's small fire escape - wait no, I'm sorry, you aren't allowed to stand on fire escapes and take in the fresh night air. It isn't a fire escape, sillies, it is a back deck patio thing, alternative exit, which just happens to be made out of the same materials as a fire escape, and looks exactly like one.

Apparently my neighbors had a young dog a few years ago. It was tied in the backyard, to its small humble home. Apparently, when the drunks decided to walk into the yard, they could see the dog, so every weekend, they'd chuck beer bottles at it in some sort of ignorant hillbilly sport that makes me want to break some offending jaws. Finally, they kicked the dog and broke its rib, and the neighbors decided it was for the best to send it into the country, to a relative's house who had a safe fenced yard away from these drunk people who are just searching for a good time.

The best part out of all of this, you know, you ask questions such as "Can't you erect a fence to keep them out?" Well, they climb over the fence. "Can't you put up a sign that says "No Trespassing, Redneck Scum"?" According to some fucked up law, drunk people can't legally READ when they are drunk, so warnings and the like, they do no good, and you will still be liable if a drunk person wanders onto your property and falls into a pond and drowns, trips over garden decorations and breaks his ankle, or happens to fall into a carefully crafted and well-placed tiger pit with neon signs warning strangers away all over the place. No. Drunks can't read or comprehend. They are allowed to do anything they want whenever they want and if they are hurt, it is no one's fault but yours.

At least, this is what the lawyer said when the neighbors consulted one.

What madness is this?

Now, I have never been a fan of being around drunks when I am sober. Nor have I been a fan of being around "rednecks" ever at all, sober or not (me or them). I do not mind overhearing Springer-esque rantings of an angry couple, or two fellows screaming at each other and using profanity. I find it amusing to hear drunken dames screeching and dropping F Bombs, because they sound like crazed foul mouth hens running around without any brains at all. Oh, how funny they sound. But I do mind it when they bother my neighbors and run through my yard, or spread their foul diseased hillbilly germs via urine, vomit, or (shudder) sex liquids on anything I may come in contact with. And it makes me angry that apparently nothing can legally be done.

So, give me suggestions. I know several city lawyers must read my blog, as well as Senators and Congressmen.

What can be done?