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I am a student at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, FL. I also wait tables in a local restaurant. About a mile from the University, there is a very large mall that is essential to FGCU students for jobs, entertainment, and shopping. The mall is a sprawling complex called Gulf Coast Town Center. Of course, before its construction, the land was a forest.
On Thursday, one of the mall's most popular restaurants and nighttime hangouts for students, and the community at large, was the victim of a drug raid. The restaurant is Miller's Ale House. Thirteen employees were arrested on drug charges. The restaurant's liquor license was immediately revoked. In this economy, without a liquor license, the sports-bar style restaurant will not survive.
My first qualm is that the raid was conducted at the restaurant, instead of through individual arrests off of the premises. Most of those arrested were college students and college-age individuals. The most severe charges are against a young man for selling $600 of marijuana to an informant, over the course of several sales.
My second problem is that an informant is a snitch. An informant is somebody who gets in legal trouble and agrees to help the police in exchange for immunity or a lighter sentence. The use of informants breeds extreme resentment, irrational anger, and an overall distrust of law enforcement authorities. Informants are even hated by law enforcement because of their tendency to be pathological liars.
My third reason for anger is that the lives of the thirteen individuals arrested are essentially over. Most will face felony charges. A group of friends that used and sold small amounts of drugs together is being treated like a Colombian cartel.
The youngest victim is a seventeen-year old boy. He sold a little bit of pot to an informant and he is in very serious trouble. He is a Senior at a local high school. He was immediately kicked off of the varsity basketball team on which he was a starter. His college prospects are dim. Besides all the other rights that they revoke, felony charges make one ineligible for Federal Student Aid.
Any of the other victims that are in college will at the very least have their aid revoked, but probably be expelled. The victims that worked full-time at the restaurant for a way to pay the bills will be fired. In this economy, and in this area, they will not find another job anytime soon unless they want to make minimum wage. Many will receive jail sentences as well.
The ramifications of this one little raid are going to be enormous. A restaurant will likely close, hurting many individuals that had nothing to do with the sting. Jails will be further filled with non-violent drug offenders at the expense of taxpayers. Many college prospects and careers have been destroyed. The local economy will be damaged. Unemployment and foreclosures will rise. The already hated Fort Myers and Lee County law enforcement agencies have further damaged their reputation.
No one benefits. The "dealers" were not pushers. They were simply using civil disobedience to supply an enormous demand, while benefiting their financial status in this recession soon to be Depression. Answer me this: Where is there a college sports-bar that does not have small-time pot dealing???