Bone headed idea of the month

A city councilor in Boston wants bars to make available plastic membranes to be placed over cocktails to make it harder for "predators" to put "date-rape drugs" into the glasses. The covers look like they could be peeled off and then put back on and can certainly be pierced with a needle, so it probably wouldn't work anyway. But, really, can you imagine the social stigma of asking for one of these and using it? See (Lids for cocktails inspire critics)

The covers require that drinkers pierce the covers and imbibe through a straw, a notion that produced some skepticism about how well they would be received."You can't drink a martini with a straw!" said Charles M. Perkins, who runs the Boston Restaurant Group. "It just wouldn't be the same. It would be a real turnoff to people.""That would crush the umbrella, wouldn't it?" said Dan Pokaski, chairman of the Boston Licensing Board. "I don't see people doing it."Critics say adding a flimsy plastic cover would remove the cachet from holding a gin and tonic. Carrying a cosmopolitan classic suddenly isn't so sophisticated with a protective covering, and something seems lost when you have to remove a piece of plastic to get to the pineapple spear in your pina colada."How am I going to get the olive out of my martini with a cocktail cover?" Councilor John Tobin said jokingly. "How about we do crazy straws, like the squiggly ones? Or why don't we just give everyone a thermos, or a fanny pack that you slide your drink into?"