Alcohol abusers hanging out at bus stops

10th & Peach bar stool, 3pm weekday. Riders had to stand.

Let me just start with this. I struggled with alcohol abuse for 15 years. It did not take this public  form, but I know very well what it is like to have an addiction and not be able to just walk away from it. I also know that I would not have wanted to spend time around the drunken me…not then, and not now.

And it can’t be said that I won the battle. I just aged out of it. My body changed, and with it, my ability to abuse alcohol.

So do not even start with me about being judgmental about their drinking. The only thing I am addressing here is people who use the bus benches and shelters for drinking hangouts.

Like most riders, I just don’t like the idea of people using the bus stop benches as bar stools and gathering spots. And it has become worse since the city has been routing inebriated persons from the parks.

The obvious issue is, if someone is using a bench as a bar stool, that is one less rider who can be comfortable awaiting their bus. And far too often it is not just the drunken butt taking up room. The 12 pack of high octane beer needs a seat as well. And the arms often need to sprawl in either direction along the back of the bench.

At 5th & State shelter, removed in 2017 as a nuisance

The takeover of the space isn’t just physical. The presence of a noticeably drunk person can make a space seem unpleasant or unsafe. A person who is drunk may be obnoxious, aggressive, sexual,  and/or loud. Also, their presence becomes a magnet for their drinking buddies, or some of the other downtown denizens.  Recently a guy at 9^th & Peach was enthusiastically talking about a great party they had  there, “Drinkin, getting high, there must have 25 or 30 of us that day!” Bet that was great fun for old people waiting on their buses too.

It also has a negative impact on how people feel about city buses. Riders whose stop has been turned into a bar stool can feel uncomfortable and unsafe about using the bus. For businesses or the general public, it can add to already unfair and stigmatized attitudes about “bus-people,” especially when there are multiples of people making it a party stop.  Just last year, the 5^th & State shelter was removed because it had been taken over by obnoxious non-riders, many of them inebriated, and had become a terrible nuisance. I had tried to use the shelter a couple time before it was removed; there were a bunch of guys just hanging out in there and it really was unpleasant and intimidating.

I don’t know what the solution is. I know it is complicated by the concern that taking action might be seen as picking on the homeless (FYI: bus stop drinking does not equal homelessness) or persons with mental illness, abuse issues, or lower incomes.  Those are all very important issues, but it seems to me you weaken their importance if you tie them to a substance abuser’s “right” to crowd out bus riders on bus property. 

10th & Parade. I tried to wake him up so I could sit down but he was conked out on Steel Reserve.

See also: Pickles, Butts, and PhDs

Pickles, Butts and PhDs

I got to the stop early and sat down on a bench at the 9^th & Peach stop. My phone’s battery is all but dead so I figure I’ll ask the only other person at the stop.

He is a neatly dressed guy about 60,  sitting there looking at the sidewalk.

“Are you waiting for the Route 31?” I ask him.

“I’m not waiting for the bus,” he tells me, “I like to sit here and observe people. Then he adds, “You know, they don’t usually say hello.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“PEOPLE! Only one in ten say hello back.”

I notice he has a beer can pretty well wrapped in cloth. As a young man walks by, he says hello, and then informs me, “They call him Butt Man.”

“Should I ask why?”

“Because he likes to go around picking up cigarette butts." he explains. "Of course me, I just like to look at butts.”

“I see.”

He notices me writing in a notebook and asks what I am doing. I tell him I write to keep from being bored while waiting at the bus. This changes the tone of the conversation, and he suddenly becomes serious..

“You know I have a PhD,” he tells me. “I suppose you want to know how a PhD got homeless,” he says.

“No, I wasn’t wondering that,” I told him. “Stuff happens.”

“Stupid,” he says. “I was stupid.”

And then he tells me his “stupid story.” It wasn’t really stupid, but it was long and detailed and not any more interesting than anyone else’s stupid story. Finally, mercifully, my bus arrived.

I saw him a few more times that summer. Same thing, sitting at the 9^th & Peach bus stop working on some beer and telling his story.

The last time involved pickles. He had found a huge unopened jar of pickles and was offering people a pickle as they passed by. He offered me one and I said No thanks, I’m good.