Soon, you might actually be able to buy something cheap in Edina.

​Twenty years after restaurants with on-sale liquor licenses were first allowed to open in the city, Edina is finally moving toward legalizing happy hours.

What sorts of wacky policy innovations will council members in the land of 50th & France and the Galleria think of next?

KSTP reports that the Minnesota Restaurant Association is working with the city on a solution to the no-happy hour problem, which it sees as a competitive disadvantages for restaurants there (Edina doesn't allow bars).

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Steven Mansfield is still looking for that wayward golf ball.

​As he puttered along the highway in a golf cart, Steven Mansfield must've looked like a late night golfer who'd really, really shanked a drive and was looking for his ball.

When State Patrol pulled Mansfield over on the shoulder of Highway 100 outside of Brooklyn Center, he at first said he worked at a golf course and was just "borrowing" the cart, a far-fetched story considering it was 4 a.m. in the morning.

After Mansfield couldn't name the golf course, he admitted to State Patrol that he'd stolen the cart, which apparently seemed like a good idea after 10 shots of gin.


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More than 4,000 blood alcohol results could be thrown out in court.

​Questions over a breathalyzer machine's accuracy have put more than 4,000 DWI cases across the state in limbo.

On Tuesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court granted defense attorneys' motion to temporarily halt 4,000-plus cases where defendants failed a breath test on the Intoxilyzer 5000, a device that's currently  being phased-out across the state.

Hundreds of defense lawyers banded together to challenge the machine's results in court, claiming that the Intoxilyzer 5000 is outdated. Ryan Pacyga is defending about 160 clients who've failed the machine's blood-alcohol test, and says it's inaccurate and poorly programmed.

"It's akin to an Atari processor," Pacyga says. "The technology has come a long way since this thing was introduced."
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Buesgens in his September mug shot.

​Rep. Mark Buesgens is already on probation for a drunken driving conviction last year that embarrassed Tom Emmer's gubernatorial campaign, and led to Buesgens giving up a House leadership role.

Now he's been pulled over again.

Buesgens was stopped on Wednesday in Scott County, and then released after passing a field sobriety test. Even so, House Speaker Kurt Zellers released a statement suggesting Buesgens get some help.

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Cynthia Mae Bearhart

​Sandstone's Cynthia Mae Bearhart caught our attention last week when she was arrested for the 10th time on suspicion of drunken driving.

A Wisconsin trooper pulled her over on Highway 77 near Danbury, and she tried to bluff her way out of the field sobriety test by faking an ear infection.

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CLF

Science!

​College, it has been said, is a time for experimentation. Which means it's all about working through the steps of the scientific method. You remember how that goes.

Here's how your lab notebook might read if you were 19-year-old Andrew Welshons, a student at Minnesota State University in Moorhead:

• Ask a question: What will happen if I get unreasonably drunk, strip naked, and start bothering women in the female wing of my dorm?
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Andrew Welshons, Minnesota State University at Moorhead

Betterton on a better day

​Kenneth Betterton, the New Prague City Councilman who told a cop to call "1-800-eat my a**" during a drunken rant last week, has quit his post. It's probably just as well. Besides bringing a heap pf bad headlines to the city he represented, he managed to make his career as professional speaker on leadership look downright foolish.

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Kenneth Betterton in one of his better moments

​If you're going to set yourself up as a guy who can motivate cops to strengthen their leadership skills, best not end up in a drunken belligerent rage telling a cop to call "1-800-eat my a**" when he's trying to help you get yourself under control.

That's the situation Kenneth Betterton found himself in not long ago, after boozing it up at Schumacher's Hotel & Grill in New Prague with enough gusto that an employee there dialed 911 out of worry the guy would try and drive himself home. Betterton ended up on the grass outside the restaurant, "flat on his back."

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Maybe Steve Horner needs a stiff one

​Steve Horner sounds like a party pooper. It turns out he's the guy who filed complaints about five local bars discriminating against men because they offered "ladies night" drink specials -- an he's never set foot in any of them.

And now we know which bars he brought to the attention of the state's Human Rights Department, too: Jersey's Bar and Grill in Inver Grove Heights, Dive Bar in Maplewood, the Wild Onion Bar and Restaurant in St. Paul, Sally's Saloon and Eatery in Minneapolis, and Bogart's Nightclub in Apple Valley.

Horner's never set foot in any of them.

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​The Minnesota Office of Traffic Safety has released statistics for 2009, which show that the state's roads keep getting safer even as the share of alcohol-related fatalities remains more or less constant.

As we wrote last week, the number of traffic deaths -- both alcohol-related and not -- have been steadily dropping in Minnesota for years. 421 people died in traffic accidents in the state last year -- the lowest number in thirty years of record-keeping. The number of known alcohol-related deaths, 141, is also a historic low.

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