All right! It’s Friday night!

Toss back a few beers, head to the bars, slam a shot or two, boogie on the dance floor, guzzle some more brew, play a little Ms. Pac-Man and then take off for home once the bouncers start herding everyone toward the door.

But watch out, or the next step on the weekend warpath could land you in a detox center. That’s exactly what can happen when a drunk steps — or stumbles — out of a bar and into the public domain.

Dozens of Iowa State students are arrested every week in public places, from Main Street, to Cyclone Stadium, to Welch Avenue for public intoxication. Some students have voiced gripes about the fact that public intox is a crime at all, and they wonder how such a seemingly innocent action could warrant consequences that include a $90 fine and several hours in jail.

As far as definitions go, Police Chief Dennis Ballantine said that public intoxication means “appearing in a public place in an intoxicated condition,” and it has been an arrestable offense in this state for decades.

“It’s been a crime in Iowa for as long as I’ve been a police officer, almost 30 years,” Ballantine said.

Such was the case with Chris Roach, a junior in business, who was arrested for public intoxication at the Cyclones’ football season opener.

“The guy in front of me complained because I spilled nachos on him,” Roach said. “I was kind of obnoxious. I had fallen down the stairs a couple of times.”

The cheese-covered victim had gone to the police because of Roach’s behavior, and the cops then asked Roach to accompany them to the concession area. Once there, they put him through a battery of sobriety tests. “I didn’t pass the tests, to say the least,” Roach said.

He was then handcuffed, walked out of the stadium and put into the back of a police car. He spent five hours in jail. “I don’t think I’ll be quite as intoxicated at the games from now on,” Roach said. “Good thing there aren’t any more night games.”

Roach had taken the classic steps prior to arrest for public intox. The nacho episode and his loudness had taken police-officer eyes off the football field and planted them securely on himself.

“We’re not making any extra effort to catch drunks — they find us,” Ballantine said. “You have to be both drunk and stupid [to be arrested for public intox]. They have to have done something to draw attention to themselves.”

For Peter Tarnawa, a freshman in animal studies, that “something” was having a cup full of alcohol in his hand. Tarnawa and a friend were walking to his friend’s car after a party, when he noticed that a pair of police officers “were walking right toward me,” he said.

“I was basically walking and kind of fumbling around,” Tarnawa said. “This was like the second time I’d ever been drunk.”

After the officers discovered that the cup was brimming with booze, a series of sobriety tests ensued, which Tarnawa failed. In addition to blemishing his record with public intoxication, he was also cited for possession of alcohol underage. He spent seven hours in jail sobering up.

Ballantine said college kids are most susceptible to public intox because of their situation: being on their own, many for the first time in their lives.

“For all the good things we have about a college town, the one bad thing is that people for the first time are feeling their oats, experiencing life without Mom and Dad,” he said. And many times, “life” can get out of control, especially when drinking is involved.

With many young people, Ballantine said, the object of a night out on the town often entails a mission to get “completely wasted,” a new phenomenon since his own generation came of legal age.

“The excess consumption of alcohol from junior high to high school seems to be an ever-rising thing,” he said. “People my age might have had a beer if we could find someone to buy it for us, but we didn’t go out with the intention of getting wasted.”

And since many Iowa Staters go about accomplishing their mission at Campustown bars, they are particularly upset that Ames Police set up shop at the corner of Welch Avenue and Chamberlain, where many are caught for public intoxication.

But Ballantine said that those officers are there “for crowd control. People have a tendency to run out in the middle of the street, start pushing and fighting.”

Often, alcohol is the root of other crimes, including assault, drunk-driving, domestic abuse and sexual assault, just to name a few. While catching those who are publicly intoxicated is not No. 1 on officers’ list, Ballantine said it helps to prevent other problems.

“It is our priority to crack down on drunk-driving,” he said. “I know people say we spend our whole life to arrest students, but that’s not true.”

The rigidity of the enforcement of alcohol-related offenses means that officers must arrest a drunk for public intoxication and take him or her to the police department to sober up for a minimum of four hours. They have learned the hard way — lawsuits being not the least of their worries — not to entrust the care of drunk people to their friends, or even just to drop an intoxicated person off at home.

“An officer has to do something about you if you appear to be drunk,” Ballantine said. “We just can’t take that risk anymore. There’s no guarantee that you’ll stay home, or that you won’t beat on your spouse.”

That explains why Roach was escorted from the stadium, instead of merely being issued an order to leave. “One of the guys that was with me tried to persuade them [the cops] to let him take me out of the stadium,” Roach said. “I kind of wish they had let him [do that]. On the other hand, they didn’t have much choice. If they had just kicked me out of the stadium, I would’ve come back.”

Some who are arrested for public intoxication are also nailed for other related crimes. For some, disorderly conduct goes hand-in-hand with being drunk in public, but as Ballantine said, the difference is that “you don’t have to be drunk to get disorderly conduct.”

Tarnawa was also cited for being a minor in possession, as was Stefan Minkler, a senior in English, who was caught walking home from a party near Friley Hall. Minkler never took a breathalizer, but he was tripped up by sobriety tests that police officers gave him. When they were cuffing him for public intoxication, they found a pop bottle full of beer tucked under his arm.

Minkler knows that he was a prime candidate for arrest, especially since he “might have been stumbling,” but he also wonders how others who do much worse than walking home when they’re drunk somehow manage to evade detection.

“I can understand how I got public intox, but I’ve had friends [who] have broken property, destroyed bikes, and they are never the ones who get caught,” he said.

Even more disturbing for some students is the widespread arrests for public intoxication, especially considering its seeming innocence, as compared to other alcohol-related crimes, like driving while intoxicated. Many students say that by walking home drunk (and getting picked up for public intox), they’re not driving home drunk (and not getting picked up for OWI).

They say that when police come down hard on those trying to get home on foot, they’re sending the message that driving might be a good alternative.

“I hear that all the time,” Ballantine said. “There’s a situation where the worst case scenario is a relatively small fine [for public intoxication; whereas] drunk driving is extremely bad. You could kill someone.”

“If you’re only a little tipsy, chances are the police won’t even notice you. But if you’re that wasted that you can’t motor yourself home, you will be arrested.”

The few consequences for public intoxication that might hurt an offender are the sobering-up period in jail (at least four hours, or until your blood-alcohol concentration is under 0.1 percent, the legal limit) and the $90 fine. Roach said that was “a little steep, compared to possession, which is only, like $35.”

But at least some of those involved in public intoxication arrests have benefited from the experience. Tarnawa, for one, said that his run-in with police has taught him a lesson.

“I feel it was very fair,” he said. “I don’t blame them for stopping me. It’ll stop me from drinking at all. I’m not doing that again; it’s not worth it. Plus, I had a bad hangover.”