Like to get your drink on early in the morning? Enjoy free pizza? Don’t mind doing a few one-leg stands? The Vancouver Police Department is looking for you.

The police force has put out the word that they are looking for volunteers to get drunk on the police dime, in order to train new recruits on how to conduct sobriety tests.

The request is contained in an email recently sent to select members of the police department’s Block Watch neighbourhood watch program.

With a subject line reading “Volunteer Drinkers Needed,” the email says eight to 10 volunteers are needed to head down to a local police station early in the morning to get a little sloshed.

The volunteers will need to drink a few shots of hard liquor (“no beer or wine,” the email stresses), and then complete three sobriety tests:

  • a simple eye examination
  • a walk-and-turn test
  • a one-leg stand test

After a few hours of testing and a free pizza lunch, volunteers would then be driven home around 4 p.m.

All volunteer drinkers would have to sign a waiver promising not to drive for the rest of the day. And they would also have to agree to conduct themselves “in a respectful manner” in the police building.

The volunteers would be allowed to get their blood-alcohol concentration only to a certain level decided by instructors, so it won’t be a complete free-for-all boozefest.

And only those between the ages of 24 and 60 with no medical concerns need apply. Anyone taking medications that can’t be mixed with alcohol are also out of the running.

Interested parties were asked to RSVP, including in their email the drink and mixer of their choice.

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Nafeesa Karim