I’ve heard a bunch of stories about people who are brewing and have the police show up. It seemed unlikely to happen here nowadays, since a lot of people brew and it has to be a familiar sight. When I saw the officer drive by I didn’t pay much attention, but I knew he’d be back because there’s no other easy way out of the neighborhood. I was kind of surprised when he stopped at the end of my driveway and got out.
The first thing he said was “what kind of beer are you making?” As it turns out, he’s a homebrewer and wanted to stop in and check out my system and talk a bit about beer. We talked brewing, gadgets, etc for a while, then I gave him a sample to take home and he gave me his email address so I can let him know when various local homebrew clubs meet. Nice guy.
Actually that’s kinda creepy if you think about it. He could have called you first. But all is well that ends well.
I was mowing the front lawn spring last year just wearing shorts and flipflops. Sweating up a storm. A local cop passed by in his cop SUV. He turned around and parked in the shade and watched until I finished mowing. Then he left.
Bothered me for a couple days until I put two and two together. :-\
Seems a little odd that a cop would invite himself to your brew session…but as you said he was a homebrewer as well and was just curious. Perhaps taking it for face value is reasonable. I assume he was on duty?
Anyway…I’m always willing to help anyone out when it comes to our great hobby…even especially an officer of the law. :)
How would he have called me? I didn’t know him before today.
I still haven’t figured out what 2+2= in this case.
He was on duty but at the end of his shift, running an official errand in my neighborhood (which is not in his jurisdiction). He didn’t exactly invite himself, he asked if I minded if he came up the driveway, he admired the setup, told me he brewed a batch of old ale yesterday, we talked Randall’s, mills, NHC, etc. He stayed for a while. There was nothing creepy about it, it was friendly and when I start talking about beer I can keep going for a while. If he had been out of uniform I would have been pouring him samples.
This is the same way I feel about it. People drive by and stare but rarely stop to talk. I need more people to drink my homebrew so I have an excuse to brew more.
My buddies who are cops are the biggest gossips I know. The suburbs around Des Moines all have there own police forces and officers I’ve never met before greet me with “Oh, you’re so and so’s friend who brews his own beer”. They’re all just people too.
If I put my “Dad Cap” on I would have tell all you kids “if you aren’t doing anything wrong, why are you worried about a cop walking up to talk?” ;D
We have new folks in the neighborhood now and its sad how little they want to socialize. Years ago we’d have block parties that were a blast. Now some the new folks look at you like a blood thirsty killer if you say hello. Of course I’m the guy who wants a “sittin porch” on the front of my house. The city doesn’t agree. Maybe I’m just getting old.
I gotta tell a story about this. Here I am, walking along a street in NE portland OR around 9:30 PM with a buddy of mine doing nothing wrong, except that we had long hair and white skin in a largely black neighborhood. Along comes a cruiser and stops across an intersection from us. Pop go the doors and a couple of officers step out, carefully staying behind the doors of the cruisers, hands on guns.
Cop: Hey can you stop for a moment?
Us (Stopping): yes
Cop (approaching with hand still on gun): Where are you headed?
Us: Home
Cop (Now standing near enough to begin patting me down): do you have any weapons or contraban?
Us: No, Why are you harrasing us?
Cop (while frisking my buddy): This isn’t harrasment, this is what we call ‘friendly conversation’, So how’s it going?
Other cop (while frisking me): do you have any ID?
Me: No, it’s at home
Other cop: any weapons? what’s that in your pocket?
Me: no weapons, just this nose flute (taking out plastic nose flute)
Other cop (pointing to the ring in my nose): what about that?
Me: it’s a nose ring
My buddy: Are we under arrest for something or can we go?
Cop (standing solidly in our way): you can go any time you want.
My buddy begins to walk away but is physically stopped by cop, frisking recommenses
etc.
Long story shorter, they ended up letting us go after about 30 minutes but it was a HUGE hassle and we weren’t doing anything wrong at all.
