Is a drink while leering at the strip club as essential as a beer at the ballpark?

I still remember the last time I was in a strip club. Not in Chicago, but it was one of those places that didn’t have a liquor license and didn’t think much of the idea of people bringing their own liquor inside.

Does alcohol really make her attainable?

Hence, they served soft drinks. The group I was with (I seem to recall it was a bachelor party) guzzled down heavily iced (and I suspect watered-down) soda pop. It may well have been diet. It was definitely flat.

CERTAINLY NOT ANYTHING that would have provided the “manly” image we’d like to think we were projecting that night.

I actually do recall one of my colleagues making a public comment to complain about the lack of liquor on the premises.

However, we had engaged in other activities prior to entering the strip club, all of which involved alcoholic beverage consumption. Which is why when one of the strip club staff snapped back, “You guys look like you don’t need another drink,” we had to laugh.

It was true.

SOMEHOW, I CAN’T help but think that response to us is one that many strip club patrons in Chicago need to hear, particularly since city officials are; considering lightening up their opposition to liquor licenses being issued to businesses where the female staff expose their nipples to the public for show.

Some let you bring your own liquor, while others follow the lead of that strip club I was in all those years ago (seriously, once you’ve seen one, there really isn’t much point to making repeat appearances; it’s not like you’re allowed to “touch” the merchandise, unless you’re willing to risk the wrath of the bouncer).

Do you need beer to tolerate bobbled double plays?

Ninth Ward Alderman Anthony Beale says he’s willing to issue liquor licenses to such clubs because he thinks the potential for problems on the premises is worse if people bring their own liquor.

Who knows exactly what they’re bringing with them? And he says he’s aware of instances where people brought gallons of alcoholic beverages with them to consume while they leered (and ONLY leered) at the overly-tattooed ladies.

CHEAP HOOCH, AND easy women. Not a nice combination.

Whereas if you let the clubs sell drinks, they’re going to have to comply with the regulations that come with a liquor license. Plus, they’re going to be serving people watered-down drinks at ridiculously-absurd prices.

You may wind up paying more than the $9 or so that one has to cough up for a beer at the ballpark.

Which is another place where it seems some people think it is a part of the atmosphere to consume alcohol.

I HAVE TO wonder how many people managed to endure the capacity crowd on Friday of Chicago White Sox Opening Day by getting as ripped as their wallets would let them.

How much beer wound up being consumed within U.S. Cellular Field? Was it a combination of the white of beer foam and snow, along with the chill of the temperatures of the air and the beer that resulted in some parts of the crowd to start getting all rowdy that day?

Did these guys check out a strip club following the game?

Will at least some of those people wait anxiously for the day this week when the City Council takes up the strip club liquor license issue? Will Mayor Rahm Emanuel feel compelled to get involved – although I can’t help but believe the mayor’s sarcastic praise last week for aldermen being able to find the time to research the strip club issue was somehow right on the mark.

Personally, I’m not going to be impacted by whatever the council chooses to do. I’m not a strip club regular; I can find enough places where I can’t touch the women on the premises without having to pay for the experience. Having a drink isn’t going to make it feel any less tawdry to me!

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No chewing tobacco at the ballparks? Or more public attention for the pols?

Endorsements baseball would just as soon see wither away

There’s something about the sight of political people getting involved with sports in any means that always seems to be self-aggrandizing.

It’s almost like they want some public attention, and figure that being seen in the presence of a professional athlete or talking about sports somehow will get them more publicity than they ever could get by addressing an issue such as the zoning laws.

WHICH MAKES ME think that 14^th Ward Alderman Ed Burke feels the need to get himself some newspaper ink – and all the television and Internet attention that naturally follows newspaper coverage. He is doing so with his latest amendment concerning chewing tobacco.

Supposedly next week, the City Council will consider a long-proposed measure by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to raise the smoking age, so to speak, in Chicago to 21.

Burke is playing off this by coming up with an amendment that would add on a provision making it illegal for chewing tobacco to be used at any baseball stadium within the city limits.

Not for any Chicago White Sox or Chicago Cubs ballplayer, or any other major league ballplayer when their teams visit Chicago.

Will baseball fans someday wonder ...

THIS WOULD BE Burke’s contribution to the baseball season, since he admits in news reports that he wants this measure implemented into law in time for the early April opening of the baseball season.

No more sights of ballplayers with a traditional chaw in their cheek, or spitting into a cup when they think no one’s watching. And no more exposure to the tobacco that can cause various forms of oral cancer.

Or more likely, Burke getting his name in news reports that will spread across the country – as he becomes the politico who wants to do away with chewing tobacco at the ballpark.

Now personally, I don’t smoke. I also have thought that chaws and the sight of tobacco “juice” (actually, it's spit) is kind of disgusting. It is a ballplayer habit that they’re better off without.

... why old-time ballplayers all had the bulging cheeks?

ALTHOUGH I SUSPECT Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta is correct when he tells the Sun-Times that many ballplayers use chewing tobacco out of habit, and that many ballplayers will take this ban as an interference with their daily ballpark routines that get them through the 162-game season.

But it’s not like this proposed change is something radical for professional baseball. In recent years, baseball officials themselves have been trying to reduce the use of chewing tobacco at the ballpark.

Minor League ballplayers already are prohibited from using the substance and can face fines if they use. Major League Baseball officials likely would have imposed a similar ban already if they could have gotten away with it without facing a  challenge from the ballplayers’ union – which contends it interferes with a ballplayer’s personal choice.

Now, the Chicago City Council is giving the major leagues what they’d like to see in at least two of the 30 stadiums in which ballgames will be staged this season.

YET WHILE I’LL concede there’s a benefit to Burke’s amendment, I also don’t doubt that he’ll enjoy the public attention he’ll get by taking on a “baseball”-related issue. At the very least, it will be a distraction from the many serious problems our politicos face, but have shown an inability to address.

BURKE: Taking on tobacco at the ballpark

Besides, a part of me finds it ironic that a life-long Sout’ Sider and White Sox fan would be eager to take on this issue – since he would have been a teenager back in the days when Nellie Fox was the Sox’ star player.

Who can envision the White Sox’ ol’ Number 2 without that big chaw in his cheek – and the many endorsements he did for chewing tobacco products. And which were also a significant factor in the lymphatic cancer that caused his death at age 47.

Which may, actually, be the best reason for officials to discourage tobacco use anywhere – and not just at the ballpark!

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