The state senate is working on a plan to get bunches of drunks off Missouri’s float streams.
The patrol and local sheriffs have heard complaints that Missouri’s streams are no longer family-friendly because large groups of young people are turning them into floating versions of the infamous Party Cove at the Lake of the Ozarks.
Senator Delbert Scott wants to ban beer bongs and other drinking devices, jello-shots, beer kegs, Styrofoam coolers…or Mardi Gras-style bead necklaces or other items that encourage fights, cussing, nudity or other lewd behavior. He tells the Senate, "These are groups of hundreds of kids that are showing up for that one purpose and the streams are just not available for families anymore…What I think this does is send a strong message that if you don’t have the high-octane paraphernalia, then most of them are going to go somewhere else."
Scott says similar rules on federally-protected streams have driven this kind of behavior to state float streams. He hopes to drive these party-goers somewhere else, perhaps–he says–to Arkansas.