Editorials from around New York

Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New York’s newspapers:

The Staten Island Advance on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed changes to the state’s alcohol laws.

May 25

Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to update New York state’s antiquated alcohol-control blue laws.

It’s the right move, particularly given the surge in craft breweries, wineries and distilleries that has boosted the Empire State’s profile and profits, and which the Cuomo administration has been rightly trying to encourage.

Cuomo is looking to change 80-year old strictures that, in deference to religious practices, forbid the sales of alcohol in bars and restaurants from 4 a.m. until noon on Sundays.

Under Cuomo’s proposed rules, alcohol sales would be permitted beginning at 8 a.m.

It’s hardly a radical shift, especially when you consider that our entire drinking culture has undergone a sea change in recent decades, beginning with the advent of craft breweries and brewpubs and now spreading to craft distilleries that put out unique flavors of gin, bourbon, rye and other spirits. Wineries, too, offer more specialized fare.

Without sounding too snooty, people are now drinking beer and a wide variety of spirits the way they used to drink fine wines: Not solely to catch a buzz, but with more of a connoisseur’s discernment. There are new tastes out there. Different ingredients. Regional variations. There’s a flavor for every palate.

Let’s encourage this taste revolution, and the new business it’s generating, not smother it under outdated rules from a bygone era.

Who has the most to gain from changing the blue laws? Places where you get a good brunch, for the most part. Restaurants where they would like to legally pour you a mimosa with your eggs Benedict.

And let’s face it: This has not exactly been a law that’s been all that strictly enforced anyway. When was the last time you heard of a tavern getting raided because they served a Bloody Mary at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning?

But let’s not kid ourselves: Loosening the stricture will also lead bars and taverns to crank up the Sunday morning drinking, particularly when it comes to those NFL days, where marathon, even binge, drinking is already de rigeur.

It will be up to barkeeps and tavern operators to make sure that their patrons are not over-served. They will have to pour with more discretion. And while we’ve come a long way in fighting drunken driving, law enforcement will also have to be aware that these changes to alcohol laws could have an impact on our roads. They must be vigilant.

More positive proposals: Cuomo is looking to simplify the application process for establishments to sell alcohol, as well as to reduce the paperwork for craft manufacturers who want to get in business. Freeing up business to do business is good for the economy.

The legislation would also allow wineries to sell wine by the growler, another positive move, and would allow customers to take home unfinished bottles. Craft beer breweries are allowed to sell by the growler, why not wineries?

Another proposal would change the so-called “200-foot law” that prohibits a bar or tavern from being within 200 feet of a school or house of worship.

Cuomo would allow the State Liquor Authority discretion to consider licensing establishments within the 200 feet as long as the local municipality, in addition to the school or place of worship, are provided prior notice and an opportunity to be heard on the application.

We would encourage the SLA to wield this new power with true discretion. Schools and houses of worship both have their own sanctity, which shouldn’t be violated without a good reason. There are already plenty of available commercial areas where bars can be sited. If this part of the proposal gets bargained away as part of negotiations with lawmakers, the plan won’t be the worse for it.

But Cuomo’s overall proposal is a good one. We encourage the Legislature to belly up to the bar, so to speak, and support the changes.

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Online:

https://bit.ly/247wxT4

The Albany Times Union on the state Joint Commission on Public Ethic’s new public relations policy.

May 25

It’s bad enough that the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics wants to snoop into the workings of a free press. Now it’s about to waste hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars defending this blatantly unconstitutional prying.

We would have thought that after even some of its own commissioners opposed the commission’s attack on the First Amendment, and after the state’s own lawyers declined to defend it, JCOPE would have scratched an idea so clearly offensive to democracy. Instead, it’s doubling down, with citizens paying the tab.

JCOPE’s new policy requires public relations professionals to report contacts they have with newspaper and broadcast editorial boards and writers. The commission reasons that if a paid public relations person tries to get a newspaper to write an editorial about legislation, it’s pretty much the same as lobbying a legislator. Since lobbyists must register and report their activity, the commission argues, so should public relations professionals when they engage in that activity.

The commission originally wanted to apply this rule to all journalists, but it narrowed the scope after encountering sharp criticism that this was an intrusion into the work of reporters. But confining the requirement to the opinion side of news organizations only reveals JCOPE’s ignorance of how journalism is done, not to mention its hostility to the First Amendment.

Opinion writers and editors talk to sources and do the same kind of research done by the news operation. On some papers, an editorial board may comprise a mix of people from various departments, including news; on some, editorial positions may be formed by an editor or publisher whose work straddles both the opinion and news sides. And opinion isn’t limited to editorial boards and writers: What about columnists?

However it’s done, it’s done by journalists whose work is protected from government intrusion by the First Amendment. JCOPE has no more business demanding to know who opinion journalists talk to than who news journalists interview - whether it’s a government whistle-blower, the owner of a business harmed by onerous laws or overzealous regulators, or a public relations professional familiar with a particular issue - maybe even something about JCOPE, one of the most secretive of state entities.

Yet, faced with a lawsuit from public relations professionals, JCOPE is digging in, hiring a law firm for up to $300,000 a year for three years to defend its opinion.

Consider how many investigators JCOPE could hire for that kind of money - investigators who could be looking into the sorts of real corruption it missed for years at the highest levels of the Legislature.

When a news organization - print, radio, television or digital - states an opinion, it’s clear where it comes from: the news organization. Whatever went into the formation of that opinion is the work of a free press, whose role it is to keep an eye on government - not the other way around.

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Online:

https://bit.ly/1U8yZ5Y

The New York Daily News on the Baltimore police officer’s acquittal in the Freddie Gray case.

May 23

The swift acquittal of the second police officer tried in the death in Baltimore of 25-year-old Freddie Gray demonstrates the damage a prosecutor can cause by overreaching when filing indictments in a racially charged case.

Baltimore state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby brought proceedings against Officer Edward Nero and five other cops after Gray died from a spinal cord injury following his arrest and transport in a police van.

Mosby charged Nero, who is white, with assaulting and recklessly endangering Gray, who was black, in the 2015 case that triggered racial unrest in Baltimore.

Mosby’s assault count stemmed from a highly unusual assertion that Nero had no grounds for forcibly touching Gray because cops had lacked cause for taking Gray into custody. She asserted reckless endangerment because cops had failed to properly secure the shackled Gray in the van by seatbelt, thereby causing his death.

Nero was on bike patrol when called to help pursue Gray, who bolted when he saw cops coming down the street. Nero eventually aided arresting officers in placing Gray into the van.

From the start, Mosby claimed that a team of cops had illegally arrested Gray. During the trial, however, prosecutors claimed that Nero and other officers had legally stopped Gray- but contended that his continued detention was improper so that it amounted to an assault.

But even that assertion was suspect in that Gray possessed a knife that was at least arguably illegal under Maryland law. Judge Barry Williams (an African-American) openly scoffed at the prosecutors’ claim that an arrest without probable cause is a crime that is the equivalent of an assault. His skepticism was sound because police make good- faith mistakes about having probable cause.

Nero had opted to be tried by a judge rather than a jury. Explaining his acquittal of Nero, Williams said that prosecutors had presented no evidence that Nero had played any role in Gray’s arrest.

Finally, prosecutors struggled to explain why Nero had a greater responsibility to secure Gray in the van than any other officer - notably the van driver who took custody of Gray. In fact, they couldn’t prove Nero was aware of new procedures mandating that prisoners be placed in seatbelts.

While Mosby portrayed all six officers as acting as reckless accomplices, the judge found that “a reasonable person would act similarly to the defendant … and therefore finds that there is no criminal liability under the theory that the defendant’s failure to act recklessly endangered Mr. Gray.”

There is a high likelihood of felonious culpability in Gray’s death. Except in the case of conspiracies and the deliberate teamwork of accomplices, the justice system focuses not on collective criminality, but on the beyond-a-reasonable doubt of one defendant at a time. Against that standard, Mosby has so far wound up with a hung jury in a first trial and an acquittal here - further undermining faith in the justice system by her misjudgments.

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Online:

https://nydn.us/25cJDAN

The Gloversville Leader-Herald on the need for more spending on drug-addiction treatment programs.

May 23

Most members of Congress no doubt comprehend the need for more spending on drug-addiction treatment programs. At the same time, they have a very clear understanding of the government’s ability to waste enormous amounts of money without achieving acceptable results.

President Barack Obama frequently turns to the public, often via social media, to overcome that attitude of prudence. Now, he has joined with rap artist Macklemore in a new campaign. Both appear in a video released recently by the White House.

In it, Macklemore admits he abused drugs and waged a personal fight against addiction. “Recovery works, and we need our leaders in Washington to fund it,” he adds.

Obama notes in the video that the House of Representatives has passed several bills related to opioid addiction. But, he adds, “unless they also make actual investments in more treatment, it won’t get Americans the help they need.”

Members of both the House and Senate understand that. But they know merely throwing money at the problem won’t work. It has been tried many times in Washington, and the headlines tend to be about waste and failure rather than success. Think Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals.

Lawmakers should provide more funding for substance abuse treatment - but only with safeguards to ensure most of the money is not poured down the bureaucracy’s rat hole. Even with such precautions, drug treatment initiatives should be monitored closely and continually.

Too often, Washington measures success in terms of dollars spent, not results. Americans dying every day from drug overdoses simply cannot afford to be victimized by that approach.

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Online:

https://bit.ly/25gXWnS

The Jamestown Post-Journal on a measure to spend $622 million to battle the Zika virus.

May 23

Most of us recognize the danger of spur-of-the-moment spending decisions. We guard against marketing strategies intended to make us reach for our credit cards first and ask questions later.

Too often that is not the philosophy in Washington, where the cost of imprudent spending can be in the billions of dollars.

Zika, the virus that appears to cause birth defects - but has affected only a handful of Americans - is the disease du jour, so to speak, in federal officials’ minds. President Barack Obama wants Congress to give him nearly $2 billion to battle the ailment.

Members of the Senate, in a bipartisan vote, approved $1.1 billion for the purpose. Now, some of them are rethinking that position after the House of Representatives passed a $622 million measure. Unlike the Senate bill, it requires offsetting cuts elsewhere in the budget.

Obama is threatening to veto the bill if it reaches his desk. His spokesman calls it “three months late and more than a billion short.”

Lawmakers and presidents of both parties have a tendency to throw money at diseases making headlines, without worrying about who pays the tab. That is one reason we have a national debt of more than $19 trillion.

The House approach is, in effect, to provide enough money to battle Zika effectively for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Then, if more money is needed, it can be provided.

Remember Ebola? Congress provided lavish funding to cope with it. Much of the money is unspent because that disease has been limited, if not eradicated.

Obama should take the $622 million and use it wisely- instead of attempting to use Zika as a political whip to punish lawmakers who, for once, have not succumbed to spending fever.

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Online:

https://bit.ly/25gZHSf