Town Legalizes Drunk Driving In Effort To Curb Population Growth
Â Wadderton recently passed a reform that eliminates the below .08 blood alcohol level requirement for motorists that decide to partake in alcoholic beverages prior to getting behind the wheel. The town says the reason for the change is a simple one, and something they believe is very important -Â population control.Rick Wheeler, the mayor of Wadderton, explained the reform to a Louisville news affiliate. âWe are a simple town, full of simple folks; our population has been under 4,000 for several decades. Itâs fair to say we have not seen a population over 4,000 since the great town of Wadderton was established in the eighteen hundreds.âWheeler, who has been the mayor of Wadderton for 14 years, went on to explain, âWaddertonâs population has exploded throughout 2014.Â We starting seeing the growthÂ towards the beginning of the year, when folks from the big cities within Kentucky started moving to Wadderton to escape the stateâs mounting real-estate market. âAccording to the mayor the small town initially welcomed the new residents however quickly decided they were unwelcome. Wheeler said âWe are good folks and were brought up to be welcoming to strangers; however these city slickers had no respect for the way of life around here.â The mayor claims that the new residents looked down upon the existing citizens and attempted to make âbig changesâ including opening a Starbucks and building a cell phone tower.Mayor Wheeler explains how the new reform ties into Waddertonâs population boom, âWe have tried everything, we spent a few weeks trying to play nice, we spent months giving them a small town cold shoulder, we even tried to run them out of town by refusing them service at local diner, dry cleaner, and post office, nothing worked on these city slickers!âAccording to Wheeler, after the town exhausted all of their outlets they had to get creative, and knew they had to make some changes.Â âWe finally realized if we couldnât get them city slickers to leave willingly, our only option was to change how we did everything. This is just another version of population control. These big city folks like to wet their whistle just as much as we do, maybe even more, and we are hoping that all of the lethal car accidents caused by our legalizing drunk driving will put a large dent in the townâs growing numbers.âWhen asked about the potential impact this reform will have on Waddertonâs legacy population, Mayor Wheeler responded, âOf course we will lose some of our best citizens in these fiery accidents, however at this point itâs just part of doing business.âThough the majority of the U.S. is frowning upon the reform, itâs been said that several other small towns are going to be playing close attention to the outcome in order to see how it could possibly work for them.