Dubuque cops go completely overboard on those and it’s ridiculous. At least that’s how it was during the 5 years I was enrolled there. When I went to Loras, I got 2 public intoxes for simply walking home from the bars. And as God as my witness, this is the absolute truth. The cops there would literally just pull their cars up to random college students walking back to their dorms/houses and would either ask if the person had been drinking or would just tell them that they appeared to be drinking when they were walking and would proceed to give them public intoxes. Happened to a TON of people there and it was ridiculous because in my opinion, it prompted more drunk driving to avoid that. The first time this happened to me, the cop asked if I had been drinking and I said, “yeah, but I decided to leave my car there because I didn’t want to drive. That’s why I am walking.” And I figured that this sort of decision would be encouraged, but no… he went right for a breathalyzer and took me to jail.
The second time it happened, the cop asked if I had been drinking and I didn’t really give much of a response other than kinda shaking my head and the cop says, “well, you seemed to be walking a tad bit off balance, so we better give you a breathalyzer.” Boom, popped again… taken to jail.
I don’t know how things are now… they could have changed since then, for people were getting fed up with them doing that around the time i graduated, but in my experience(s), the Dubuque Police throws public intoxes at people like parade candy.
