LABELED MEN LET BACK INTO LIQUOR STORES

San Pablo to withdraw its list of eight `habitual drunks,' end
program, donate to aid group

SAN PABLO -- Eight men singled out by police as ``public drunks'' are
being let back into liquor stores.

City officials have agreed to settle a controversy that arose last
fall when police visited the city's 27 liquor merchants to warn them
they could be charged with a misdemeanor if they sold liquor to any of
the eight men police described as ``habitual drunks.''

In a deal expected to be signed this week, the city will formally
rescind the list and pay $5,000 to the Gray Panthers, a senior group
that helps the men with rides, food and clothing, City Attorney Brian
Libow said. The deal will avert a possible lawsuit, Libow said.

``This just goes to show poor people can fight city hall and win,''
said Oren Sellstrom, an attorney who represented the three men who
challenged police. ``They stood up for their right to not be unfairly
labeled by government.''

The city will pay because the legal world has long since given up the
notion of a habitual drunk.

Libow applauded the creative attempt by police to clear Kennedy Plaza
park of public drinkers -- a decades-old problem for the tiny park
overlooking San Pablo Creek. The park, a short walk from several
liquor stores, has become a de facto watering hole.

But Libow said a search of case law revealed that the 1889 state law
prohibiting alcohol sales to habitual drunks is invalid. The state
Supreme Court in 1960 ruled that the term ``habitual drunk'' was too
vague and thus the law was unconstitutional.

The $5,000 settlement will go for food, medicine, clothes and
emergency shelter for the homeless, said Susan Prather, who
coordinates homeless outreach for the West County Gray Panthers.

Sgt. Mark Foisie said he came up with the sales ban idea in October
after spending the past 17 years trying to convince park regulars that
they should move into shelters and sober up. Each of the eight men has
logged between 15 and 30 arrests for public drunkenness, burglary and
aggressive panhandling, he said.

The money isn't going to the men because the city insisted any payouts
go ``to a good cause,'' Libow said.

In past interviews, the men said they relied on friends who weren't
blacklisted to buy them beer. But they fought the police on principle,
decrying the police portrayal of them as boozers who bug the public.

Police now are left with their old tools: beat cops trying to persuade
drunks to dry up and arresting those suspected of public drinking and
disturbing the peace.