As some of you may know the popular bar "Thirsty Turtle" in College Park, MD had its liquor licence revoked yesterday due to a court verdict based on results of a sting operation planned by local police. The operation involved 2 undercover student police officers that presented the Thirsty Turtle bouncers IDs that indicated that they were not 21 years old but were admitted into the bar anyways. The turtle came into question after a violent incident in mid October that began inside the doors of the College Park bar; however it may be worth looking at it from a new media perspective...
The Thirsty Turtle has an active facebook page that has over 5,203 "Fans". I would have to imagine that some, if not most of these followers are not 21 or over. It was not stated in any report, but I'd have to imagine that in performing their due diligence the government investigators may have looked at some of these fans linked to the Thirsty Turtle; finding that some of them are not 21 and have frequented the establish enough to become a fan on facebook. If I was a detective on this case, I would absolutely exhaust Internet resources in order to at least gain a feel for the public image of the bar.
This brings me to my next point, should the Thirsty Turtle have had a facebook page? Sure it was good for promotions and free marketing, but I speculate that it may have cost them in the long run.
What do you guys think?
Will, I think u raise an interesting point: gov't officials should check SNS for problems like this. I remember reading in a press release that police had caught 3 underage drinkers at the turtle over the past yr. As we all know, there are probably 300 a night, and this is def evidenced by the turtles fanpage.
ReplyDeleteWill- I don't know but I think maybe the report you were talking about was mine. I did it on social media and the law and found out some quite controversial things that to me seemed quite ridiculous. For the turtle- I think you may be right. I think it might have been something like RA's friending underage kids and finding out where off campus parties or dorm parties were happening. I think that may have been another way for them to figure out who from Maryland and Catholic had status updates or wall posts about their times at the Turtle. As for the "likes" I think it may hint at the underagers but the status updates and comments on peoples personal pages or the Turtles page might have been the solid proof.
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