On New Year''s Eve a few years ago, "Victor" welcomed in the new year like many area locals and tourists--by partying the night away in downtown Monterey''s various hot spots. Victor, a Monterey businessman and 15-year resident, had consumed more than a little bit of alcohol that night. After all, it was New Year''s Eve.

When the bars let out at 2am, Victor called a cab, but there were none to be had. The taxis filing down Alvarado Street were full of other partiers on their way home.

So Victor, a stout Eastern European immigrant who had defected from his home country while it was still shrouded by the Iron Curtain, started for home the way he had come. He began walking the 20-minute walk to his Monterey apartment. Knowing he would be drinking, he had left his car at home that evening.

As he hoofed down Pacific Street toward home, Victor says a Monterey police car pulled up beside him, and the officer inside asked him what he was doing. Victor replied that he was walking home.

"The next thing I know, they put handcuffs on me, and that was the end of the story," Victor says. "I was a half-mile from home."

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"Monterey is the easiest place to get arrested in the Western Hemisphere. They hunt you like an animal."

--"Victor," Monterey resident

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Like a common criminal, Victor was fingerprinted, photographed, and stripped of his personal belongings, including belt, wallet, jewelry, watch, and shoelaces. He was then escorted to his quarters for the next few hours: a crowded jail cell within the Monterey police station, where he would sleep on a plastic-covered foam mattress with one thin blanket and no pillow.

"You feel like shit," says Victor, "like you killed somebody. It''s a terrible feeling."

The next morning, humiliated and hungover, Victor was released without charges.

Victor doesn''t deny that he was drunk that night. He likes to drink. What Victor does deny is that he gave the officers any reason to detain him. He says he was perfectly capable of getting himself home. But just for walking home, he received a night in the Monterey "dormitory," a jail cell where minor offenders are held.

That was the first time Victor was arrested for 647(f), the state penal code that declares public drunkenness a misdemeanor. Since then, he has been arrested two more times for the same offense.

The second time, he ran from the cops because he didn''t want to spend another night in jail. His flight cost him an added resisting arrest charge.

The last time he was arrested, about six months ago, Victor says he was outside the Crown and Anchor on Franklin Street waiting for a cab when an officer approached him and asked for identification.

"I said, ''leave me alone, I''m waiting for a cab''," Victor says. "I was fed up."

Victor''s flippant remark cost him a third night in the dormitory.

"Monterey is the easiest place to get arrested in the Western Hemisphere," he says. "They hunt you like an animal."

For Your Own Good

In Europe, Victor had been arrested only once--for demonstrating against his country''s communist government. He came to this country in 1984, penniless and speaking no English. Since then, Victor has learned fluent English and has succeeded as a small business owner in Monterey.

Victor is mystified by the local cops'' vigor for arresting folks who are just out to have a good time. Indeed, the Monterey police have a reputation for running a tight ship when it comes to public drunkenness. And they like it that way. Monterey cops "detained" 799 people for drunkenness last year, by far the most in Monterey County. Most of those arrests occurred downtown.

Under state law, a person has committed a misdemeanor if "he or she is unable to exercise care for his or her own safety or the safety of others, or by reason of his or her being under the influence of intoxicating liquor."

In other words, the police can legally "detain" people who have been drinking for the drinker''s own protection.

Public drunkenness was decriminalized several years ago because it''s considered a social problem, not a crime per se, says Monterey Police Chief Gary Brown. Therefore, a public drunkenness violation warrants "detention only" as opposed to an actual arrest. Most are let go, without charges, after they''ve sobered up. Those with repeat offenses or who have racked up additional charges, such as resisting arrest, may be actually cited or charged.

"Our intent," says Brown, "is to place an inebriated person in a position to do no harm to themselves or others."

That''s a responsibility the Monterey police take seriously. On a given weekend night, there may be as many as six officers patrolling Monterey''s downtown. They scour the crowds for signs of inebriation, such as staggering, stumbling, public urination, and physical or verbal aggression.

Officers argue that taking drunks off the street is as much about protecting the intoxicated people from themselves and others as it is about protecting others from the drunk ones. Inebriated people, they say, are prime pickings for a pickpocket. Or, in a state of intoxication, a person could be injured by falling, or by stumbling in front of a car.

"Someone may be mad that they were detained," says police Public Information Officer Randy Taylor, "but you know what? We let them go the next day, and they were safe."

Officers believe that by being proactive, they are preventing problems before they occur. For example, one drunk taken off Alvarado Street could mean one less drunk driver behind the wheel later in the night, or perhaps one less fatal car accident.

"We like to be proactive instead of reacting to problems," says Monterey Police Officer Robert Guinvarch.

But Victor''s not buying it. "Drunk doesn''t mean unsafe," he contends. "I like to drink, but I''m not violent and I''m not crazy. If I''m not disturbing anyone, I should be left alone."

City	Population	Drunk in Public Arrests	Drunk Driving Arrests
Salinas	131,100	584	520
Monterey	33,100	799	431
Seaside	30,000	110	108
Pacific Grove	17,450	56	65
Carmel	4,580	18	15

Doing the Right Thing

What disturbs downtown club patrons is that even when they try to drink responsibly--by walking or calling a cab instead of driving, for instance--they still risk a night in the slammer.

"If you are responsible and reasonable enough to leave your car, you shouldn''t be punished," says Peter, who frequents Monterey''s bars.

Just a few months ago, Peter was drinking at his favorite pub, the Mucky Duck on Alvarado Street. As usual, he had left his car at home and taken a cab downtown. "If I know I''m going to drink," he says, "I don''t drive."

After a few beers, Peter asked the bartender to call him a cab. Knowing that the cab driver would not come into the Duck to fetch him, Peter says he walked out onto the sidewalk to wait for his ride. It was a Friday night, and like most weekend nights, cabs were scarce. He would have to wait about 20 minutes before the taxi arrived. In the meantime, Peter took a seat on the curb and smoked a cigarette.

When the cab finally showed up, Peter stood up, staggering to keep his balance. "I was a little wobbly," he admits. "I''d had a couple of beers."

Peter says he reached out to open the cab door when a hand grabbed him from behind and a voice said, "Come with us."

"I explained to the officers that that''s my cab, I''m going home," says Peter. "But they handcuffed me, put me in the police car, and I spent the night in the dormitory with eight other people."

Heather was luckier. She escaped temporary imprisonment, but says she was hassled nonetheless by Monterey''s finest one night while calling an ambulance. A fight had broken out in front of Viva Monterey, and she had called 911 at the request of an onlooker. As she was calling from the pay phone on Alvarado Street, she says a squad car pulled up and asked her if she was calling the police. She said yes, and told the officer about the fight down the street.

Then, says Heather, the officer began interrogating her, asking her what she knew about the fight. She knew nothing, except that someone asked her to call 911. The officer didn''t believe her, she says, further interrogating her about the fight and about how much she''d had to drink that night. When she again said she knew nothing about the fight, says Heather, the officer accused her of lying.

"He had me pinned against the wall of Britannia Arms" for several minutes, she says, before finally letting her go.

Again, neither Peter nor Heather deny that they had been drinking. What bothers them about their respective experiences is that the cops refused to give them the benefit of the doubt. Instead of being rewarded, or at least left alone, for doing the right thing, they were punished for it.

Monterey''s perceived puritanical attitude toward alcohol consumption leaves drinkers at a loss for how to get home when they''ve had a few too many.

"You can''t drive, they don''t want you to walk, they don''t want you waiting on the street for a cab," laments Victor. "If you go out in Monterey, how do you get home?"

However, the cops do encourage people to take cabs. If Peter''s story is true, says Chief Brown, "I would be very disturbed by that."

If the cops were truly worried about their welfare, say bar patrons, they''d simply drive intoxicated people home instead of forcing them to spend an uncomfortable and humiliating night in jail. For instance, Carmel cops have a reputation for being more "neighborly" by simply driving home the drunks instead of detaining them.

"In Carmel, they take you home," says Peter. "In Monterey, you just walk wiggly and they bust you. They have nothing else to do."

But Brown says the police don''t want to compete with the cab company servicing Monterey. "We''re not a taxi service," rebuts Chief Brown. "We don''t want to go to that extreme."

It''s also a matter of convenience. Monterey has its own jail just a few blocks from Alvarado Street. On the other hand, Carmel officers have to drive suspects all the way to Monterey''s jail in order to detain them.

"You will get more drunk-in-public arrests in Monterey than you will in other places, where it''s not as operationally convenient," says Taylor.

Not In This Here Town

Even if your memory doesn''t go back that far, anyone who''s read Steinbeck can imagine what Alvarado Street was like back in his day: a regular Skid Row, complete with tattoo parlors, pool halls and nightly bar fights. It''s only in the last 20 years or so that Alvarado Street has cleaned up its act. And the old Alvarado is something the citizens of Monterey don''t want to see again.

"It''s generally understood that we have a beautiful community," says Brown, "and we don''t want it to revert back to the way it was in the old days."

Skid Row is gone, and the ruffians of old have been replaced with college students and tourists. But Monterey still has the largest concentration of bars in the city''s downtown and Cannery Row areas--where the majority of drunk in public detentions originate--of anywhere else in the county.

In a six-block area of downtown, the cops have to contend with drinkers from Lallapalooza, Mucky Duck, Britannia Arms, McGarrett''s, Viva, Crown and Anchor, Cibo, Long Bar, Characters and Peter B''s Brewpub. Ditto for Cannery Row, which offers Sly McFly''s, Bluefin Billiards, Bullwackers and Planet Gemini, plus the many cocktail-serving restaurants.

A lot of money, both private and public, has been spent to raise the respectability of downtown and Cannery Row. A strong police presence, says police, ensures that it stays that way.

"We have a lot of tourists and transients on Cannery Row," says Jack Burnam, general manager of Sly McFly''s. "We need police presence to know that the tourists are going to be taken care of. I think they''re doing a hell of a job."

Downtown, the Old Monterey Business Association--which is made up of downtown merchants, private commercial property owners and city officials--has pulled off a veritable Pygmalion act on Alvarado. And a police presence downtown was no small part of the ongoing facelift. In fact, the association itself, consisting mostly of private business interests, pays for one full-time police officer to patrol downtown.

"We have a good working relationship with the Old Monterey Business Association," says Brown. "It just makes good business sense to maintain safety in a thriving tourist-backed economy."

Which brings up the big T, as in Tourist or, more to the point, Transient Occupancy Tax, the lucrative hotel tax that has made the city of Monterey the wealthy community it is today. Monterey is a tourist-dependent town, and safe streets mean returning visitors. While police officers don''t directly benefit from arresting drunks, they nevertheless know who ultimately pays the bills. "If you have a tourist-backed economy," says Monterey City Attorney Bill Connors, "the fact is that tourists pay for the police. TOT makes a big difference."

That is not to say that officers discriminate. Police logs show that a drunk tourist is just as likely as a local to be picked up and thrown in the dormitory. Likewise, a survey of police logs show that officers don''t discriminate by age, ethnicity, or gender.

If there''s any discrimination going on, it''s simply against those who drink alcohol.

Nothing Better To Do

The Monterey cops hear it all the time. "Don''t you have anything better to do?"

They don''t. And they feel lucky for it. So should the citizens of Monterey, they say.

The simple truth is that Monterey is a rich town that can afford the luxury of a strong police presence. It''s nice that, on any given Friday night, the police''s biggest worry may be a few drunks stumbling down Alvarado Street.

In comparison, the city of Salinas, about four times as populous as Monterey, made 250 fewer drunk-in-public arrests than Monterey last year. That''s because Salinas cops have other things to worry about, say Monterey law enforcement officials.

"What are they doing in Salinas while we''re arresting drunk people?" asks City Attorney Connors. "They are investigating shootings and dealing with gang problems.

"In a small town where a barking dog may be the highlight of your evening, we have the resources and the ability to keep the streets safe."

Nevertheless, you''ll never convince Victor, Peter or Heather that the cops are going about that task the right way.

"People that are citizens of this city and have a permanent address, they should be assisted home," says Victor. "Instead, they turn average Joes into criminals."