Looks a lot like a soda.
Posted on 04/28/2008 7:58:13 AM PDT by mombyprofession
If you watch much television, you've probably heard of a product called Mike's Hard Lemonade.
And if you ask Christopher Ratte and his wife how they lost custody of their 7-year-old son, the short version is that nobody in the Ratte family watches much television.
The way police and child protection workers figure it, Ratte should have known that what a Comerica Park vendor handed over when Ratte ordered a lemonade for his boy three Saturdays ago contained alcohol, and Ratte's ignorance justified placing young Leo in foster care until his dad got up to speed on the commercial beverage industry.
Even if, in hindsight, that decision seems a bit, um, idiotic.
Ratte is a tenured professor of classical archaeology at the University of Michigan, which means that, on a given day, he's more likely to be excavating ancient burial sites in Turkey than watching "Dancing with the Stars" - or even the History Channel, for that matter.
(Excerpt) Read more at wzzm13.com ...
I am betting this ‘professor’ now raises a good Republican
Even if it wasn’t an accident, who cares? The BS this kid went through is far worse for him than a bottle flavored malt liquor.
This is nothing more than the goon squad sending a message to parents saying "WE RUN THE SHOW."
after reading the whole story one wonders what trauma the boy will have and for how long being jerked away from all family members like that.....gov’t run amuck......
However, once you have a report of a seven year old publicly consuming an alcoholic beverage, it has to be investigated.
And once it is investigated, it has to be referred to child's services.
The officer on the scene, the supervisor and the child services worker doesn't know Ratte from Adam, and has no clue whether or not this represents a pattern of behavior or an anomaly.
They knew if they ignored it and Ratte's son turned up in an alcoholic coma a few weeks later, they would be raked over the coals and people would be calling for their blood.
Every system that allows such workers discretion is eliminated once that discretion leads to a mistake or two.
Perhaps it is an indication that the regulations by which the child services administration in MI operates are dictated by the lowest common denominator of child services cases in MI - in other words, the regulations were written with an unmarried teen crackhead's child in mind, not a tenured archaeology professor's child.
I think you’ve got it exactly right. It’s a real shame.
I don’t watch that c*ap either, and would never buy anything called Mike’s Hard ........, and caseworkers make me barf!
Did you expect competency, rationality and efficiency from the Kwame Kilpatrick administration?
“We are from the government and are here to help.”
Another bunch of brainless bureaucrats “helping the children”. They should all be fired ASAP for allowing this kind of thing to happen.
Worse case scenario the kid would have thrown up and had a hangover in the morning. Instead they wasted thousands of dollars on a simple mistake that could have been dismissed early on. Hospital stay, foster care and who knows how much was spent in legal fees and court proceedings. What a bunch of jackhole dipsticks, thank God I don’t live in that communist hellhole.
So how did he drink 12 ounces of Hard Lemonade, and have NO TRACE of alcohol in his blood about 90 minutes later?
investigation is one thing, child abduction is something different.
This guy has a Phd and he has never heard of hard lemonade?
MI ping.
1) Hire the best contingency lawyer in Michigan
2) Sue the state of Michigan for $100 million
3) Sue the Detroit Tigers for $100 million
4) Settle for $5 million.
How long should it take normal human beings to size up the situation. One problem with our justice system, let alone state bureaucracies, is that we make decisions that used to take 15 minutes into long, bureaucratically-entangled, drawn-out processes. Justice delayed is justice denied.
I agree. The headline should read ‘Over an alcoholic drink’ since it wasn’t just lemonade. I’d probably be appalled too, if I saw a young kid drinking an alcoholic drink like that. What would anyone do in the case of a kid openly drinking booze? What if it were beer? No one here would get upset, say something to the parents, call someone? I truly believe it was an honest mistake but still needed to be investigated.
I’ve never had a Mike’s Hard Lemonade and I’ve never seen an ad for it anywhere, but I do know that it’s alcohol, just like hard cider is or that hard sauce is made with rum or brandy. And I know that from *ta da* history books! You’d think Dad would have known that too.
The problem here is the police officer had no authority in this situation and the father was forced to comply. It was his son and he (mistakenly) was drinking in his presence, a misdemeanor at best. Taking custody of his child far overstepped his authority in this situation.
Foster care is not abduction.
Again, in Detroit - for obvious reasons - there is very little leeway in the law.
To me what is truly bizarre is that the university was not able to get a top-notch attorney to get an injunction against the child services administration within hours.
Most firms I've worked for would have done that for an employee once he explained the situation to management.
It’s bottled to look like a soft drink. You probably wouldn’t know it was alcohol unless you searched the label.
i’d agree with your 15 minutes assessment.
if everyone was really worried about the wellbeing of the child, why is the father not sitting in jail on “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” charges?
Oh well...let this guy go, but hammer the trailer trash that might watch TV.
That's what I gather from this line.
It functionally is beer, flavored like lemonade. You'd think someone with the education for a PHD would be able to discern the 'hard' part of the lemonade. I wonder what else he got from the vendor when he purchased the Mike's. Maybe Dad had a coke.
I know. I looked up an image of it online and it says “Malt Beverage” on it. But I’ve known for years that it was an alcoholic beverage. Anything that’s ‘hard’ is, hard sauce, hard lemonade, hard cider. I’m just amazed that a professor didn’t know that (and I truly think it was an honest mistake on his part).
It is bottled in a beer bottle.
I believe that Ratte had no clue it was an alcoholic beverage, but it is not deceptively packaged.
I agree. I meant that if the kid were openly drinking a cup of beer at a stadium, there would probably be people thinking it was terrible and have said something. But because it was ‘lemonade’, nothing should have been done. I’m surprised at Dad’s non-knowledge too.
Becasue the focus of the law is actually on the well-being of the child and not on punishing the parent.
How could one argue that a law that focused primarily on locking parents up was motivated solely by the child's well-being?
Looks a lot like a soda.
I'd suggest that the parents sue, but it was probably the fear of a lawsuit that caused the officer, people at the park, and CPS to handle things the way they did.
It's hard to be glad that it didn't take longer to sort out what should have taken moments, but when lots of people that know very little about what really happened all go overboard trying to do what is in the best interests of the child, things can get very screwed up, and can take a while to straiten out.
Looks like a snapple.
If this hard lemonade was an alcoholic beverage, wouldn’t the dad have been carded when he ordered it?
The Comerica cop estimated that Leo had drunk about 12 ounces of the hard lemonade, which is 5% alcohol. But an ER resident who drew Leo's blood less than 90 minutes after he and his father were escorted from their seats detected no trace of alcohol.
Not a very good commercial for Mikes Hard Lemonade.
Good thing about this is that everyone involved are probably flaming liberals. Maybe now they'll question some of the crap flowing from the little fiefdoms that are so purvasive throughout local government.
removing of a child from an upstanding family over something like this is abduction. CPS, the cop that recommended it and the judge that signed off on it should be facing charges.
this is pure and simple abuse of the system. a short interview with the family should have sufficed.
and don’t tell me there’s little leeway in the law. the decision is based on recommendation of CPS and police. if it was this bad, what’s the father being charged with? how much jail time is he facing?
No, many people havent.
I dunno . . . I think one would have to be pretty dense not to realize that a drink called "Mike's Hard Lemonade" is an alcoholic beverage.
I doubt he said “Why don’t you give me a Mike’s Hard Lemondae”
He probably said “Lemonade”
The vendor handed it to him and didn’t think that the seven year old was going to be drinking it.
The good professor probably didn’t even glance at the label as he navigated his way to his seats and handed the bottle to his son.
it also comes in a 16oz plastic bottle
To me, it appears bottled similar to beer, not soda. There must have been signs there somewhere saying over 21 only, no? And if I was unfamiliar with the brand, I would certainly read the label. So many beverages these days contain high amounts of caffeine or other ingredients I would not want to consume. The father should have known exactly what he was giving his child. He is smart enough to read a label.
Once while getting my muffler fixed I meet the guy who started Mike’s Hard Lemonade, he was preoccupied with his lap top mostly, seemed kinda of a stuffy, smarter than thou type, but I did get in a truth of alcohol, no matter what color, flavor or carbonated, it’s still just poison to the body.
That's the problem in America today. Everyone is afraid of lawyers. They should be afraid of me.
I agree, the name is a hint, but in this day and age, where words often don’t mean what they used to mean, you can’t be sure. And a lot of these “alcopops” are deliberately colored and packaged to look like soda pop. I’m a non-drinker, and when I first saw a six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade on the shelf, I wondered if it was alcoholic, but I certainly wasn’t sure.
When you go to a supermarket or a convenience store you have to look hard to find soda packaged in a glass bottle with a beer style metal twist cap.
That's because 99% of soda sold in the US comes in a 20 oz. plastic bottle with a short neck and a white plastic twist cap, not a 12 oz glass bottle with a long neck and a metal twist cap. And 100% of the soda sold at ballparks comes either in a plastic bottle of the kind I've just described, or a plastic cup with a lid and a straw.
So, it doesn't look like a soda at all.
Again, he made an honest mistake, but it is not deceptive packaging at all.
www.jonessoda.com
It is bottled in a beer bottle.
No. It is bottled in a lemonade bottle.
Clear beer bottles have yellow, not grey, liquid in them.
So you say.
Neither of us know whether or not this actually is an "upstanding family." And certainly the city workers on the scene had no way of ascertaining that.
CPS, the cop that recommended it and the judge that signed off on it should be facing charges.
What charges should they eb facing? On what evidence?
this is pure and simple abuse of the system. a short interview with the family should have sufficed.
Short interviews have far too often resulted in dead children.
The case of Nixmary Brown is a famous example.
and don’t tell me there’s little leeway in the law. the decision is based on recommendation of CPS and police.
There is very little leeway, so I will tell you that fact.
CPS and the police, once an incident is reported, cannot say they neglected to follow up because they "had a good feeling" about the situation. There has to be a determination - and the determination has to be made on evidence.
if it was this bad, what’s the father being charged with? how much jail time is he facing?
It seems that I was not clear.
It is entirely possible for a parent to have done nothing that creates criminal liability while still being judged an unfit parent. A parent who has a severe illness that impairs their ability to care adequately for a child, for example. A parent whose job requires them to spend long periods of time away from their child, combined with the unreliability of alternative child care arrangements (babysitter fails to show up on numerous occasions, the parent's sister neglects the niece she promised to care for while the parent was working). And so on.
There are whole bunch of do-gooders that disagree with you.
The bottle looks like lemonade to me. I would have guessed that “hard” meant....stronger, tarter flavor. (less sugar, more lemon)
It needs to spelled out right on the front label, if it is an adult beverage!
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