Arlington, Virginia, the wealthy county neighboring Washington D.C., has upped the fines for cursing or being intoxicated in public from $100 to $250. An ill-timed expletive will get you a Class 4 misdemeanor.
As The Washingtonian reports, the County Board changed the rules regarding “persons appearing intoxicated or profanely cursing” on Saturday, after being told the Arlington Police Department had made 664 arrests for profanity and/or drunkenness-related offenses last year.
The Washington Post notes, however, that only four of these people were actually arrested for cursing.
The code also changed the section banning public “drunkenness” to a ban on public “intoxication.” An accompanying memo claims that in the past police have been unable to arrest those under the influence of intoxicants other than alcohol.
The standard for defining someone as “intoxicated” appears fairly low–“For the purposes of this section, ‘intoxicated’ shall mean a condition in which a person has consumed enough alcoholic beverages, narcotic drugs, or other intoxicants or drugs of whatever nature, to observably affect his manner, disposition, speech, muscular movement, general appearance, or behavior.” A second glass of Merlot observably affects my dance-floor behavior–does that count?
All this comes after Arlington passed a series of other party pooper regulations last year, aimed at reining in some of the area’s infamous bar brawls.
Luckily D.C., at least, continues to hold down the fort and embrace freedom/profanity.
