Published: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:25:33 +0900

So what does USFK do to the local community that has been highly supportive of the Camp Humphreys expansion and helped keep the anti-US protesters at bay? Well piss them off of course:

About 300 South Korean merchants gathered outside Camp Humphreys? gates Monday to demand Col. Michael J. Taliento?s resignation following his decision to place two local bars off-limits to soldiers.

In a phone interview early Monday evening, Taliento told Stripes he placed Duffy?s Club and the Bay Watch Club off-limits for serving alcohol to underage soldiers.

U.S. Forces Korea raised the legal drinking age for its personnel to 21 on Nov. 1, 2004. South Korea?s drinking age is 20. If off-base bars sell alcohol to underage USFK personnel, the command can place those bars off-limits.

If this all sounds familiar, it should because this is a near repeat of what happened last August when the Camp Humphreys ville was put off limits for under drinking then as well. Here is the sign they put up when that crisis occurred:

This is what the bar owners had to say after last August's stand off ended:

Club owners outside Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek will fire bar workers who engage in prostitution as well as any of the ?entertainment? agencies that provide female bar employees who might later take part in the sex traffic, the head of a local merchants group said Friday.

The merchants also will fire any worker selling alcohol to underage U.S. servicemembers, said Kim Ki-ho, merchants association president in Anjung-ri, the Pyeongtaek City district in which Camp Humphreys is located.

This is what I had to say once that stand off ended:

This dispute ended pretty much how they always do, the club owners vow to change their ways then wait a while and go back to the old ways after some time passes and there has been a personnel change over. They continue their old ways until someone calls them on it again. The bar owners face no legal consequences for human trafficking, prostitution, and selling alcohol to minors from the Korean law enforcement, so they will always continue to play this Off Limits game with the Army. The Army needs to police itself instead of relying on the clubs to do the policing for them.

So here we go again with an exactly identical situation. When is the command going to learn to police themselves? Bar owners are going to keep playing this silly off limits game with USFK as long as the command demands them to enforce laws that are legal in Korea.

If you want to stop underage drinking then don't let soldiers 20 years old or younger go into the ville past 1900 when all the shopping stores close and the bars open. You can card at the Humphreys gate and have the Courtesy Patrols do random carding in the ville. If someone is caught breaking the policy slam them. Or if you want to let the underage soldiers in the ville anyway at night than you need to card everyone at the gate and have a bunch of breathalyzers ready.

The current policy is only pissing off the biggest pro-American supporters in the area and greatly destroying soldier morale on Camp Humphreys. The soldiers at the Hump are routinely locked down on camp because of the camp expansion protests and now when they aren't locked down they can't even go to anywhere in the local ville.

Make sure you check out Lost Nomad as well for some great pictures and more coverage of the latest only in Korea, USFK Soap Opera.

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