By Jeremy Morgan
Latin American Herald Tribune staff

CARACAS – Control freaks once again asserted themselves on the issue of the right of grown adults to buy or take a drink in public during special events such as the recent referendum.

The Interior and Justice Ministry got into the habit of imposing lengthy restrictions on the purchase or public consumption of alcoholic beverages some time ago; now it's beginning to look like attachment to Prohibition is becoming a serious addiction.

This time, it's Carnival Weekend that's the object of unwanted bossy boots attention from killjoy spirits. You certainly can't blame this one on Rio, where most probably they're already getting well stuck in.

To be fair, the latest set of instructions to the public is not as draconian as the absurd three-day total ban imposed before, during and after the referendum only last weekend. But restrictions will still in force for three days, and then some.

With effect from nine o'clock on Friday morning, liquor stores are only able to stay open for business until seven o'clock in the evening right through to Monday. Bars and restaurants can't serve drinks before twelve noon or after midnight on the same days.

Nanny State officials have reserved their knock-out punch for the final round. The ban will be right across the board for all 24 hours of Carnival Day itself, Tuesday next week.

If the recent past is anything to go by, the likelihood is that swathes of establishments simply won't open on the day. They'd have to pay double time, and it simply won't be worth it. Habitual topers will have to make do with getting hammered at home.

Nobody in officialdom apparently wanted to put a public face to this latest example of what critics (and they're not just imbibers) see as a sign that the government at heart simply doesn't trust the people to behave themselves.

This evident distrust ignores the fact that the great majority of the population is largely law-abiding. If they weren't, Venezuela's grim reputation for violence and crime would likely be a whole lot worse than it already is.

Instead, the people's marching orders were quietly issued through the pages of the Gazeta Oficial last Wednesday. It may surprise bureaucrats that not everybody buys or reads this dry official publication, and that ordinary Joes only learnt of the ban from Friday morning's newspapers. By which time, the measure was already in force.

It was only then that Interior and Justice Minister Tareck El-Aissami referred to the ban at a press conference where he announced that 122,000 officers from Civil Protection would be deployed during Carnival.

Not for the first time, the rationale behind the booze ban was to protect lives, meaning above all safer standards of driving as hundreds of thousands flock to family and friends for the festivities and back again.

Again, this rather missed the point, namely that an awful lot of the citizenry doesn't have a car. And, of course, there's the law to deal with those who drink and drive, or others in drink who get out of order, just as there is all year round.

Large numbers of police and other state security officers will be posted around the country during the long weekend. It remains a mystery why the government apparently doesn't believe they're up to dealing with troublesome individuals if and when it's needed.

Infrastructure Minister Diosdado Cabello, who seemed to be wandering off his own reservation, chipped in with a warning that anybody caught driving under the influence would be punished. The national authorities intended to be "strict and severe" with any such miscreants, he added.