BYOB

>> How to drink your own booze at downtown street festivals

by JOHN EDMONDS

While Montrealers enjoy their city's summer festivals, many feel that the big events have become too corporate and crowd-control oriented. One of the things that angers some people--especially if you're smuggling in a few king cans--is when guards ask to check your backpack or handbag as you enter the festival site.

But civil liberties freaks and low-budget jarheads take note: according to MUC Police, guards can only insist on a bag check--and deny you access if you refuse--on private property. So, given that most of the outdoor action at the Just For Laughs (July 13-23) and Les Francopholies (July 27-August 5) festivals is on city land, it's good news for those who prefer to drink the booze of their choice at a reasonable price, rather than lining up to pay $4.50 for a cup of Labatt.

They will try and stop you, though. According to Richard Cliché, production manager for outdoor events at the Just For Laughs festival, "We have a responsibility under our alcohol license to check for bottles and cans for security reasons. We'll ask people to open their bags or allow them to be touched. If they refuse--well, we can't actually force anybody."

If you do comply, and the guards find booze in your bag, then it's hard to con your way through. "A lot of people live inside the site perimeter (Sherbrooke, Berri, Ste-Catherine, Sanguinet) and we have mailed them all resident's cards," Cliché says. "So if someone says they live there, we ask to see their card. If they say they are going to visit a friend with a bottle of wine, then we'll escort them to that address."

Cliché says the festival will also station guards inside dépanneurs on the site, noting those buying alcohol and asking them to show their resident's card. But again, you have no obligation to comply.

Drinking at the festival is restricted by law to four areas--three parking lots in the core area, and Place Louis Pasteur on St-Denis, right next to UQÀM. You don't get checked again as you enter these areas. But they will have a legal right to evict you from the three privately owned parking lots where drinking will take place--if you get caught. (Hint: try a bathroom cubicle to transfer your booze to a standard plastic cup.)

Francopholie spokespersons say that they'll also request the familiar bag check. But the opportunities for getting affordably drunk in public are even better here than at Just For Laughs. Technically, you don't even have to use your chutzpah to get past the guards. The whole outdoor area of this francophone-themed music festival is on public land and is a licensed zone. So, according to Stéphanie Bouchard, spokesperson for the City of Montreal, "If you enter with your own alcohol, they can ask you to put it into a plastic cup for security reasons. But they can't actually take it away or bar you from the site." :

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