It is not a violation of quarantine rules to use your own balcony or hotel’s balcony.
And that’s preposterous. You know why? Cause it’s not a prison! It’s quarantine. Having my laptop doesn’t affect the prevention of spreading disease.
Yeah, and neither does drinking or taking ketamine (or whatever was in those pouches), but they were confiscated nonetheless.
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I hope the French vodka wasn’t Grey Goose
Yes it does. When intoxicated, you have less control over yourself. That may result in unacceptable behaviour as I stated above. This is why drinking and driving is not allowed.
Whatever was in those pouches, if it was not a problem, probably shouldn’t be hidden inside instant noodles.
Quarantine workers already have enough work to deal with.
But you could be playing violent video games and become uncontrollable!
Then surely drinking alcohol should be completely banned everywhere, not only in quarantine hotels! Ban everything!
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That’s a strawman. And not true.
That’s a strawman as well.
This is a quarantine hotel with many other people inside it. Having the hotel suddenly be overrun with drunk people potentially spreading the virus defeats the purpose of the quarantine.
No, it doesn’t. People may have less control over themselves in some cases, sure. And I would imagine there are a lot of people (the vast majority?) who’d be perfectly fine taking alcohol into quarantine without it having any effect at all on the stated purpose of their detention. How much of a problem has this been for the people who have taken/smuggled alcohol into quarantine facilities? Do you know of any cases where this has happened?
I wonder how you’d be posting about these things if the news stories referred to China doing this stuff.
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Yes, sure, that’s totally the most likely outcome. 
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If we were able to account for every single person and their reactions to substances and bacterial agents, then I guess we wouldn’t be having this conversation now would we? We’d have highly customised treatments for everyone. But I guess we don’t live in a perfect world.
The same…? Cause I’m not anti-China? If you’ve paid any attention to my posting, I’m pretty consistent. I don’t just bash on China cause they’re China.
I did not say it was the most likely outcome in any one hotel, but we cannot afford to have that outcome with an infected drunk person.
We don’t live in a vacuum.
LOL. Having alcohol ≠ hotel suddenly overrun with drunk people. You have your own Strawmen to deal with…
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It’s possible, It could be one, it could be many. It’s not a strawman. But leaking the most contagious virus since measles is what the government and populace does not want in a pandemic. I can see why they wouldn’t want to take that risk.
It’s probably not entirely unfounded. A lot of people are going to be real angry, and if you’re angry to begin with and you’re an angry drunk, I can see that turning out badly in a very very small number of cases. What they’re most concerned about here, IMO, is bad PR. Someone going postal - for whatever reason - would have the public questioning the sanity of locking up thousands of healthy people for no discernible purpose.
That theoretical justification doesn’t alter the fact that the CECC has no official law-enforcement powers outside of those granted to them for disease control. In practice, of course, a government body has whatever powers it takes upon itself in the absence of public objections.
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You know what? I’m gonna like this post. I’m happy we could find a bit of common ground.
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There are all kinds of opportunities for the virus to leak out in quarantine facilities (and at the airport etc.), as already demonstrated by previous leaks. This may be an additional very minor one, but I think that hotels confiscating any alcohol is a heavy-handed approach to dealing with it.
And my original point was; I can see where they’re coming from.
Ask them to cite the rule specifically.
I’ve had a few friends in the same situation, hotel says it but can’t point to the rule in the rulebook. Like many things in Taiwan, the rules are made up as they go along.
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I can’t remember exactly which one I bought. I stopped by an alcohol superstore and the varieties are endless. These warehouses are like the Costco of obscure alcohol. https://www.totalwine.com/ It definitely wasn’t Titos or anything in a plastic bottle.
I can think of worse vodkas than a Grey Goose or Ketel One.
Does Grey Goose sell to Kirkland own brand, or is that an urban myth?
I’m not sure. Their French vodka is better than the American one but I think I still prefer the Absolut. I’m not an expert and could be easily fooled.
Absolutely wrong of them. Why would it matter if they have “contraband” anymore than it would for a normal hotel guest? The purpose is to keep them separated from other people, not police the items sent to them.
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