French Town Rolls Out Special Fines For New Year's Drunks

The city of Orleans, France, is sick to death of all the people using New Year's Eve as an excuse to get totally hammered, and it's going to start sending out the police to curb excessive merriment with a series of increasingly hefty fines.

According to The Local, the police have been bristling about the time and expense required to take care of drunk people during the holiday, so they're going to start passing on the expense to the drunks themselves.

"Every year an average of 250 to 300 drunken people are apprehended by police," local authorities said. "It can take one or two patrol cars between two and four hours to mobilize the drunkard from start to finish."

So this year, anyone caught being excessively drunk in Orleans on December 31 will pay a special $148 fee for using up city resources. If a doctor is necessary, the fine jumps to $187. But while that might help ease the city's financial pain on New Year's Day, it does not seem all that likely to be effective in making the visitors to Orleans pass on that third or fourth glass of celebratory Champagne this year.