The week in review

Latest in the ABC Harris Teeter debacle: The agent in charge of the operation that put a water-buying 20-year-old in jail with three felony charges, John Taylor, was stripped of his command of the Lynchburg office, shipped off to Staunton, and is the target of an employee grievance appeal, K. Burnell Evans reports in the Progress.

Latest bad news for McDonnell family: Twenty-one year old Sean McDonnell, a rising fourth year at UVA and son of Governor Bob McDonnell, is arrested on the Corner July 6 and charged with public drunkenness, the DP reports. The news comes as the governor is under investigation for unreported gifts from Star Scientific's Jonnie Williams.

Latest for Matt Murray: The former Allen & Allen attorney who was sanctioned for $542,000 for suggesting his client, Isaiah Lester, remove Facebook postings during a multi-million wrongful death lawsuit, faces disciplinary action by the Virginia Bar Association, according to the Progress.

Earliest closing time: Scottsville Town Council unanimously decides July 15 that speakeasies should shut down at 12:30am rather than the 2am closing required by the Virginia ABC. According to a DP story by J. Reynolds Hutchins, the town council says special-use permits give the right to mandate closing. "You don't want people who are drinking to move from one bar to another," says Mayor Barry Grove about the 12:30am cocktail curfew.

Worst washout: Dick Woods Road collapses from the heavy rains July 12. VDOT reopens the road July 15 with a temporary repair.

Most important lessons: Richmond International Airport law enforcement officers will take a two-hour course on the First and Fourth Amendments as part of the settlement of a lawsuit filed by Charlottesvillian Aaron Tobey, who was arrested for disorderly conduct when he removed his shirt to reveal the Fourth Amendment written on his chest as a protest of full-body scanners when going through security at the airport in December 2010.

Best news for home sellers: Sales in the Charlottesville area are up 11.3 percent this year over the same quarter last year, according to the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors. The median sales price is $273,200, up 6.3 percent from a year ago, and over half the houses for sale this quarter were on the market for 40 days or fewer.

Best op-ed: "ABC debacle should stir debate on drinking age," penned by local libertarian Rick Sincere, appears in the July 14 Richmond Times-Dispatch and notes that this country's 21-year-old drinking age is the highest in the Western World and puts us in the same league as Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Oman, Pakistan, Palau and Sri Lanka.

Best bling: BackStory radio's American history guy Ed Ayers, former UVA arts and sciences dean and current University of Richmond president, is presented the National Humanities Medal July 10 by President Barack Obama at the White House.

Best news for [some] nonviolent felons: Governor McDonnell unveils his plans to streamline the restoration of voting rights for nonviolent felons, but moves some burglary and B&Es to the list of violent felonies.

Most disappointing: The majority of drug offenses remain categorized as violent.

Most heroic: Chilly, a three-year-old English bulldog mix from Mineral who whined and licked awake her owner, Heidi Parker, is honored July 16 with the Humane Society of the United States' Pets of Valor award. Parker's throat was swelling shut from an anaphylactic reaction to an allergy shot when Chilly stepped in to save her life, according to a release.

Happiest good Samaritans: Emily Kraus and her boyfriend were on the way to see a DMB show in Hershey, Pennsylvania, when she stopped to pick up a stranded biker: Dave Matthews, who was on the side of the road with a flat tire, no cell phone, and late to his own show, reports CNN. The rescue got Kraus dinner with the Dave and front-row tickets to the show.

1 comment

An op-ed about the 21 age for buying alcohol and another article about 120 of these drones working for the ABC.....
We had a more reasonable 18 year limit for awhile until uber D-bag, St. Ronnie, put the heat on all the states to roll it back to 21.
We have such a twisted society full of so many contradictions between Neo-Taliban moral codes and a culture replete with pornography in advertising and an "anything goes" code of personal conduct. Kids confused? I should think so, given the messages being sent.
How crazy we are, as a country, that 20 year old people, old enough to do anything else adults are called upon to do, have to face the later day Elliot Ness morons drawing fat salaries off our nickel and given the right to make arrests or even to gun people down who fail to comply. Surely these people could be better employed working as flagmen for VDOT?