Alcohol News: August 2004

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Police Actions at Fraternities Disputable
The Daily Californian, CA, August 31, 2004
Last week, UC and Berkeley Police departments closed in on fraternity parties, attempting to stamp out both underage drinking and unapproved parties.

Underage drinking has been and will continue to be a problem at Berkeley, as at the vast majority of college campuses across the United States. But upon receiving a $50,000 grant to cut down underage alcohol consumption, police have been taking innovative measures to do just that.

Undercover Berkeley police have started attending fraternity parties... If fraternities want to keep police out of their parties, they will have to take measures to make parties more exclusive.

On the other hand, with the knowledge that police officers may be present, fraternities can choose of their own volition not to serve alcohol to minors and avoid any legal repercussions.

But before considering the undercover officers, there is the issue that technically, fraternities cannot yet have parties with alcohol anyhow.

Fraternities at UC Berkeley are not allowed to serve alcohol at parties until they take a risk management course offered by the university. This course takes place in two weeks; the university therefore expects all events involving alcohol to be postponed for that time.

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Monday, August 30, 2004

Binge drinking warning
Dominion Post, New Zealand, August 27, 2004
Research published in the New Scientist magazine this week says experts have not paid enough attention to binge drinking and the harm it causes.

There is growing realisation that most alcohol-related problems stem from those who drink excessively but who are not alcoholic, it says.

In the United States, research suggested 32 per cent of 21 to 25-year-olds regularly got drunk. The figure was worse for university students - 44 per cent binged at least once a fortnight.

One US study suggested that how and when alcohol was consumed may be as important to a healthy liver as the amount consumed. The study found that women who drank only at weekends, even if they drank less overall than other women, were more likely to get liver disease.

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Friday, August 27, 2004

Drinking and death
Courier-Journal Opinion, KY, August 27, 2004
Heavy drinking by minors is taking a huge toll every year...Yet our nation largely remains in denial about the consequences and frequency of binge drinking. In fact, in many ways our attitudes and actions condone and facilitate it. Efforts to combat youth drinking remain far less vigorous than to fight other substance abuse, such as smoking and drug use.

Underage drinking, which is usually much heavier than adult drinking, is associated with violence, injury, depression, suicide, educational failure, and risky and abusive sexual behavior. For adolescents, heavy drinking can even cause mild brain damage, and it seems likely that early drinking increases the chances of developing alcoholism later.

Yet as a society, we just accept that young people are going to spend weekends drinking till they drop.

Minors get most of their booze from adults, of course. Friends and friendly retailers - even some parents - are willing to supply it. And underage drinking is broadly viewed as a rite of passage instead of the danger that it really is.

A few years ago, Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to assess the problem and devise a nationwide strategy to reduce underage drinking. The report, stark and comprehensive, was issued a year ago, but there has been no action so far.

Parents, alcohol producers, retailers, restaurants and bars, the media, educators, community organizations, the military - all need to play a role. Denting the denial will require a massive educational effort, possibly financed by an increase in alcohol taxes.

The most important strategy for preventing tragedies...is to keep minors from getting drunk, not holding them in jails after.

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Update: A Year of "Reducing Underage Drinking"
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Twenty years ago, the only wine you saw at most major-league ballparks was the Champagne players sprayed on each other when they won.

The rash of expensive new baseball stadiums across America in the past 15 years has done more than boost ticket prices. With the new emphasis on exclusive club levels -- the Giants' SBC Park has two -- fans now expect a total luxury experience. And that includes wine.

As a franchise that understood the importance of on-base percentage before anybody else, the A's are also ahead of the wine curve. This year they introduced their own A's Private Label wine, made by Markham Vineyards in St. Helena.

But the Giants are also heavy hitters in the wine department. Their wine list is longer than Oakland's, and their wine cart on the promenade behind home plate was televised on a Travel Channel show, "Cheech Marin's San Francisco."

Shannon Jelliffe, who works at the centerfield wine cart, says sales follow the Giants' on-field fortunes. "If we have a big inning, people come out and drink more. They're happy," says Jelliffe. "If we're on a losing streak, they won't drink as much."

The ambience depends in part on the opponent..."The Red Sox crowd drinks a lot," Knight says. "We're looking forward to having them."

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Reducing Alcohol Problems at Public Events

Barbara Dyer, 36, of Brandy Lane, pleaded innocent this week in Bridgton District Court to multiple misdemeanor charges of furnishing alcohol to a minor and endangering the welfare of a child. If convicted, she faces up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine on each of the 16 charges.

"The conduct of Ms. Dyer in providing this alcohol to children and leaving them unattended in a campground overnight is irresponsible, inexcusable and criminal," Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson said in a statement Thursday.

"Other parents, who entrusted the care of their children to Ms. Dyer after receiving assurances that there would be adequate supervision and no alcohol at the party, have every right to be outraged."

An investigation...showed that Dyer allegedly bought $140 worth of beer, liquor and malt beverages for her son's party. The beverages included three 30-packs of Budweiser Light, a fifth of Bacardi rum, Smirnoff Ice and other malt beverages, said the county's juvenile prosecutor, Christine Thibeault.

The dozen youths at the party ranged from 13 to 19 and included Dyer's 13-year-old daughter, Anderson said. Some had vehicles there.

Dyer was cited with 12 counts of furnishing liquor to someone under 21 and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child, the charge when alcohol is furnished to someone younger than 16. State law requires a mandatory minimum fine of $500 for providing alcohol to anyone younger than 14.

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More on Adults and Underage Drinking

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Alcohol tax off city ballot
Juneau Empire, AK, August 24, 2004
Bar owners walked out of City Hall beaming Monday night after the Juneau Assembly decided to wait for a legal precedent before placing a new liquor tax on the ballot.

At the same time it tabled a measure asking voters to boost the current 3 percent alcohol tax to 5 percent, on top of the 5 percent general sales tax, the Assembly voted to proceed with a ballot measure for a new high school.

The court will interpret an Alaska statute that prohibits an alcohol tax in municipalities that don't tax other items.

"One argument against the alcohol tax is that it's not a good time. But when is a good time?" asked Assembly member Marc Wheeler, who proposed the alcohol tax increase. "We have some big alcohol problems in our community."

But opponents argued that even the Assembly wasn't sure whether the tax would go into prevention and treatment programs.

Matt Felix, a proponent of the increase, remains optimistic. "As soon as the Alaska Supreme Court decides, the Assembly will have the license to go forward," said Felix, executive director of National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence in Juneau.

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More on Alcohol Excise Taxes

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Putting Caps on Teenage Drinking
New York Times, NY, August 25, 2004
A year ago, at the request of Congress, the National Academy of Sciences issued a nationwide strategy to reduce underage drinking. It hasn't been adopted, and since then more than 3,000 Americans have been killed and nearly 1 million injured in traffic crashes, shootings, stabbings, beatings, drownings, burns, suicide attempts and alcohol poisonings - all linked to underage drinking.

This week, nearly 1,000 prevention advocates and alcohol law enforcement officers are meeting at a conference in San Diego to promote the recommendations from the National Academy report. But despite their dedication to the cause, they probably won't succeed - without a lot more help from Washington. A few federal agencies have taken small steps, and two pieces of legislation have been developed but sit languishing. Lawmakers may be too preoccupied right now to tackle a thorny social problem. And the power of the alcohol lobby makes everybody in Washington skittish.

To do so little in the face of this preventable death and injury toll - particularly when the victims are children - is astonishing. The report provided specific proposals, from a national media campaign and the establishment of an independent prevention foundation, to curbs on alcohol advertising and increased enforcement to stop sales to minors.

Meanwhile, advocates in community coalitions and in some government agencies are being pushed backward. Underage drinking prevention groups have had their grants reduced or eliminated by strapped state and local governments. A federally financed information system to track state alcohol laws and policies faces significant cuts. Alcohol law enforcement departments, chronically underfinanced and understaffed, have been hit by budget cuts in many states.

An adequately financed, nationwide plan to reduce underage drinking, adhering to the National Academy report, would save even more lives.

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Update on "Reducing Underage Drinking"
More on Environmental Prevention

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Alcohol ads sell 'good time' to students
Patriot-News, PA, August 23, 2004
"Every time you see an advertisement, you see a bunch of guys drinking at a bar, people having a good time, and that's what people in college want," said John Orobono, a senior at Lehigh University, of Bucks County. "They make the funniest commercials I've ever seen, and that helps." The 22-year-old marketing major believes liquor and beer commercials effectively sell products to an already willing audience of college students.

But his frat brother, Marc Wasserman of Long Island, N.Y., thinks low-price promotions work better with cash-poor college students. "You go to a bar ... and it's a dollar special, something you don't even like, you're going to choose the dollar beer and get drunk," Wasserman said.

Some alcohol industry observers argue that such low-price drink promotions as $1 pitchers, 25-cent draft beer nights and "penny til you pee" events encourage excessive drinking among college students.

"We suggest that one of the ways to solve the problem is to limit promotions that increase high-risk consumption," said Steve Schmidt, director of the Bureau of Alcohol Education at the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.

One of the problems with marketing alcoholic beverages to college students of legal drinking age is "spillover" to their underage classmates, said the Rev. Jesse W. Brown Jr., Pennsylvania coordinator of Georgetown University's Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth.

After all, how do you create an ad to appeal to a 21-year-old but not a 20-year-old?

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Examples of Egregious Alcohol Advertising
Alcohol Availability on Campus

Monday, August 23, 2004

Police fear more DUIs are coming
Arizona Daily Star, AZ, August 21, 2004
Local public-safety agencies are gearing up for what some studies have shown could be a deadly change - beginning Wednesday, Arizonans will have one more hour to buy alcohol as liquor sales hours are extended to 2 a.m.

There's limited national research and a lot of local uncertainty about exactly how much the extra hour of drinking time will affect public safety and efforts to reduce irresponsible drinking. But Tucson police are bulking up late-night patrols to handle potential increases in drunken driving and other alcohol-fueled crime.

Harper said that in addition to drunken driving, violence can flare up at after-hours gatherings that involve people who have been drinking at the bars.

...safety advocates are concerned by the new law, which makes Arizona the 38th state to allow liquor sales after 1 a.m.

...there is little other research now. What has been done was cited by the Marin Institute, a San Francisco-area group that provides resources to prevent alcohol problems in communities, as it lobbied against a proposal to extend drinking hours from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. in the Bay area.

The group cited studies from the past two years that show there were fewer drunken-driving arrests if Sunday alcohol sales were banned, as well as a drop in the number of drunken young people crossing into the United States from Ciudad Juarez after the Mexican border city changed its closing time to 3 a.m. from 5 a.m.

"There is enough evidence to show that cities which extend last call are likely to experience more alcohol-related problems," said Amon Rappaport, communications director for the Marin Institute.

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More on Extending Bar Hours

Hardeeville City Council members had barely settled in their seats in the new $1 million Community Center's meeting chambers Thursday evening when they were talking about banning alcoholic beverages from city property - including the Community Center.

The Community Center, which opened just two weeks ago, is being touted as belonging to citizens. They will be invited to have reunions, parties, wedding receptions and other gatherings there.

But the city now wants to ban beer, wine and liquor from all events that take place on city property, including the Community Center, ballparks and streets and sidewalks.

Council members voting for the alcohol ban, Bill Horton and Edward Moyd and Mayor Pro Tem Brooks Willis, said the city doesn't need the threat of problems and lawsuits that could spring from alcohol consumption on public property.

"We should keep (Hardeeville) safe and simple," Moyd said.

Willis said alcohol is nothing but trouble. "I've ... seen alcohol destroy families," he said. "The city has to exercise some control."

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Friday, August 20, 2004

It's Miller Time -- With A Single Shade Of Color
Click on Detroit Entertainment, MI, August 16, 2004
A beer company that started out to mark the 50th anniversary of rock-and-roll has brewed up a major controversy, instead.

Miller Brewing is catching some heat for celebrating the 50th anniversary of rock-and-roll with commemorative cans but not including any black artists.

Miller Brewing is out with eight commemorative beer cans featuring Rolling Stone cover shots of rock artists.

The cans feature Rolling Stone covers picturing Blondie, Elvis Presley, Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Willie Nelson and the guitars of Eric Clapton and Joe Walsh. None of the artists is black -- and that isn't sitting well with some critics.

By contrast, six of the first 10 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 1986 were black -- including Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles and Little Richard.

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Spano said the Alcohol Without Liquid Machine would harm efforts to drive down underage teen drinking and driving under the influence.

"This is really attractive to youngsters," Spano told the Journal News of Westchester in Thursday's editions.

"It's portable, and it will wind up at parties with kids. ... We don't want it in Westchester, and in fact, we don't want it in the state," Spano added.

Westchester has a chronic underage drinking problem, and recently enlisted the help of a Justice Department contractor, the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, to investigate the problem.

The machine, created in England and already in use in other parts of the world, has users wear a mask and breathe in the alcoholic vapor. Promoters praise it for inducing a sense of well-being and say it doesn't lead to hangovers.

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"Prohibition didn't work either," says Angela Taylor, associate dean of student development and director of the Alcohol and Drug Education Center at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. "We're giving them skills to last a lifetime."

Now, Dr. Taylor says, universities are beginning to look beyond their campuses to bar and liquor store promotions that contribute to student attitudes about alcohol.

"What student doesn't know drinking and driving is a bad idea?" says Dr. Taylor. "But a third of them get behind the wheel. Where's the disconnect?"

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Want to Prevent Alcohol Problems on Campus? Start Here.

Thursday, August 19, 2004

Initiative to tackle underage drinking
The Missoulian, MT, August 18, 2004
More Missoula police officers will be walking through bars all over the city. Extra patrol cars will visit underage parties. Youths in their late teens, working with police officers, will visit bars and convenience stores trying to buy liquor. Officers in street clothes will work side-by-side with bouncers to help them hone their skills at spotting fake IDs and turning away potential underage drinkers. Billboards and fliers will remind parents that they're No. 1 on the prevention list. And new sixth-graders and ninth-graders will get training in how to say "no."

Missoula's new strategy is to blanket the city and smother the underage drinking problem.

"Every part of the community has a role in underage drinking," said Jori Frakie, coordinator of the Missoula Forum for Children and Youth. "It's really important to realize that everyone has to be doing their part in order for the community strategy to succeed. Parents can't do it alone. Schools can't do it alone."

The effort includes elected officials from the Missoula County commissioners to the Missoula City Council to parents to alcohol retailers to schools to addiction agencies to law enforcement and justice, said Frakie. It's coordinated by Missoula Underage Substance Abuse Prevention, which is a coalition that's under the umbrella of the Forum for Children and Youth.

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Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Albany is top party school in nation
Associated Press, August 17, 2004
Beating Harvard or Yale on a list of rankings would ordinarily make administrators at the State University of New York at Albany beam. But not when it wins the nation's No. 1 party school crown. Albany was ranked seventh in the use of hard liquor and marijuana, ninth in beer drinking and first in "students (almost) never study," helping get Princeton Review's top party spot.

The review's annual "Best 357 Colleges" survey, conducted since 1992, is based on responses from more than 110,000 students at campuses around the country. The review has no affiliation with Princeton University.

"The rankings are not to be taken seriously, and are certainly not reflective of the serious, hardworking students at Albany," university spokeswoman Lisa James-Goldsberry said in a statement. "If this were a term paper, it would get an "F" in methodology."

The "party school" category is based on questions focusing on the amount of alcohol and drug consumption, the amount of time students spend studying, and the popularity of fraternities and sororities.

The American Medical Association has criticized party school listings, saying they legitimize high-risk drinking and portray alcohol as an essential part of student life. Robert Franek, lead author for the survey, disagrees and says the survey accurately reflects college life - for better or worse - and can be a vehicle for change. "I think we do a great service for college-bound students, being in a very unique position to get onto the 357 best college campuses and ask students tough questions," Franek said.

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Last year liquor stores were allowed to open on Sundays if they closed another day, but Babi declined. Now he said he will have to weigh what his immediate competitors do, but doesn't think selling Scotch on Sundays would bring much added revenue.

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Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Biggest problems are alcohol caused
San Francisco Chronicle, CA, August 17, 2004
"It's really jack-of-all-trades police work," said Jon King, a lieutenant with the department, which fields 62 officers. "It's all across the map. For me, the basic mission is simple. I just want to make sure the parks are in the kind of condition that meet my personal standards -- that would make me want to bring my family for a visit."

But the biggest problem by far, said King, is overconsumption of alcohol.

"Soooo many of our problems are related to drinking," said King, cruising through Chabot Park. "Fistfights, gunfights, knife fights, domestic violence, fatal car crashes, alcohol poisoning. Say it's a hot summer Saturday afternoon at Lake Chabot. The place is absolutely packed, everybody has been drinking beer all day. By about 5:30, things can start getting pretty wild. You really earn your pay then."

"Seriously, if we catch you up here with alcohol again, we'll arrest you, " Green told one young woman who kept nodding her head. "We want you to have a good time. But you can't break the law here. We'll be watching for you."

"That worked out," said King, getting back behind the wheel of his car. "It's not always about making arrests. If we can interdict something like this in the afternoon, it saves us another trip up here at midnight, when they start getting rowdy, becoming a nuisance, maybe endangering the public by driving back down the hill on a beer run."

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The seminar was part of a program introduced to Westwood in April of 2002 known as Standardized Training for Alcohol Retailers. The seminars teach restaurants how to spot minors and tactfully decline service to patrons.

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Monday, August 16, 2004

A-B goes clubbin' with marketing message
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Business, MO, August 12, 2004
...Anheuser-Busch also has a new rival in mind: distilled spirits. Last year, the volume of spirits consumed increased 4.5 percent, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. In contrast, domestic-beer consumption declined 0.3 percent in 2003, according to trade publication Beer Marketer's Insights.

So, the brewer has been stepping up on-premises marketing efforts by increasing the frequency of older programs like the freshness campaign and adding new ones to keep young adults - ages 21 to 27 - loyal and excited about its malt beverages.

Beer remains the most popular alcoholic beverage in the United States, and no other drink is close to surpassing it.

On a per-capita basis, American adults 18 and older consumed about 307 servings of beer last year, compared with 148 servings of spirits and 71 servings of wine, according to Robert Weinberg, a brewing-industry consultant based in St. Louis.

Besides expanding its on-premises marketing, Anheuser-Busch will be fiercely defending key "beer occasions," the social events people most closely connect to beer.

Sporting events, after-work socializing, family gatherings, picnics and casual dining are events where beer dominates...

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High rate of underage drinking may prompt new alcoholic beverage taxes
KVOA, AZ, August 12, 2004
Some kids in Pima County start drinking at 9 years old. That startling statistic prompted a county-wide commission to find ways to stop underage drinking.

One of the commission's recommendations is to start registering the names of customers who buy kegs.

Another idea is to increase Arizona's tax on alcohol, which Daniel Head, member of the commission, says hasn't been done in more than 20 years.
The commission surveyed 500 people and found that 67% would support an alcohol tax increase if the money would support alcohol treatment programs.

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There is evidence that it is now girls such as Kelsey, not boys, who constitute the majority of youths using alcohol.

The role that ads may play is highlighted in a study released by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University in Washington. The group looked at the advertising content and readership ages of popular magazines such as Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Maxim and Sport Illustrated.

The study found that underage youths saw more alcohol advertising than did adults in 2002 - and that teen girls were far more likely to be exposed to that advertising than teen boys.

The group Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free cites 2002 research showing that 38.5 percent of ninth-grade girls reported drinking in the past month, versus 34 percent of boys. Some 21 percent of girls and 19 percent of boys reported binge drinking. Until that year, girls had reported consuming alcohol at rates less than or nearly equal to boys.

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France is sick of alcopops
Sunday Herald, Scotland, August 15, 2004
France, the country that turned boozing into an art form , is leading a European fightback against that garish affront to civilised drinking known as the “pret à boire” - or, in English, the alcopop.

Alarmed by the rapid inroads made by pre-mixed alcoholic cocktails in many neighbouring countries, President Jacques Chirac’s centre-right government has pushed through an amendment to its public health bill which will double the tax on all sales from January. The increase will put up the price of the average alcopop to between €3 and €4 (£2-£2.50) - beyond, it is hoped, the reach of the adolescent market whose drinking habits are a cause of mounting concern. The money raised will be spent on government programmes to combat alcoholism.

“The increase is essential for public health because pre-mixed drinks and other ‘alcopops’ are manufactured in order to capture an ever- younger clientele,” the government says in the preamble to the bill.

“What we are trying to do is discourage consumption of alcoholic drinks whose strong alcoholic taste or whose bitterness has been masked by the addition of other products. The sale of these drinks is a pure marketing strategy aimed at young consumers, who are attracted by the sweet taste.”

“Today Swiss and German teenagers drink more alcopops than beer,” he said. “We want to kill these new products by making them so expensive that the kids stop buying them. When it comes to the health of our young, we will not allow companies to get away with anything in the name of profit.”

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Friday, August 13, 2004

The Coors and the Kerrys
CounterPunch, August 12, 2004
Coors, of the brewery family which has funneled huge sums of money to ultra-right groups, proposed during his campaign that the drinking age be lowered. Coors doesn't care about the horrible damage that teenage drinking does--beer company profits are under pressure and the money has to come from somewhere. Lowering the drinking age would go hand in hand with the takeover of live music venues which breweries have staged, along with their fellow drug-pushers in the tobacco industry.

Pete Coors is also a board member of the Heinz Corporation, the giant business empire controlled by Teresa Heinz, aka Mrs. John Kerry. The Heinz Corporation is the ultimate source of much of the money the Kerrys are using to run for President.

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Last month underage drinkers who are students at Gonzaga University in Spokane used the Internet to buy and later receive liquor, wine and beer. They're members of Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, and they're demanding that state Attorney General Christine Gregoire lower the boom on illegal sales of alcohol to minors via the Internet.

We join the call for tighter enforcement by the state, but first we must point out that government cannot do everything. Parental control, education outreach programs and personal responsibility are the most effective prevention strategies.

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The school's Board of Regents on Wednesday also debated pulling illegally displayed CU logos from liquor- store promotions and protesting liquor-license applications near campus.

Wednesday's newly announced drinking policies were first discussed before allegations about CU's football recruiting practices were made public in January. But they are designed to address a runaway campus culture that fostered the scandal.

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The vote followed nearly two hours of pleas by residents, the overwhelming majority of whom said they feared passage of the proposed ordinance would lead to debauchery and problems with rowdy drunks in the community.

"I felt like I went to sleep and woke up to find North Charleston had become New Orleans," said former Mayor John Bourne, who was joined by roughly two dozen others who spoke out in protest. "We don't need to go out of our way to make things hard on ourselves."

The majority of council members, who previously approved the measure in finance committee, said they were swayed by the turnout of those opposed.

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Thursday, August 12, 2004

Parent group says NC town soft on teen abuse
Chapel Hill News (NC), Wed, Aug 11, 2004
A group bent on drying up teen drinking and drugging is finding allies with school administrators and police.

A small grassroots team of mostly parents, the Committee for Alcohol- and Drug-Free Teenagers, wants to reform what members call a lax attitude toward substance abuse in Chapel Hill. This casual approach of parents, police and teachers comes at middle and high school students' expense, according to Dale Pratt-Wilson, a mother of two who started the small group.

"When I say they're buying and selling at school, they are," she said. "When I say they're drinking alcohol in class from water bottles, they are."

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Conjure up a few mental images of these local traditions: the Food & Wine Magazine Classic, the après-ski scene, Aspen Crud at the Hotel Jerome, a summer picnic on the listening lawn at the Benedict Music Tent, the most recent Aspen Cocktail Classic. A bottle of wine, a jigger of whisky, or a pint of beer is nearly always part of the picture.

But conspicuous consumption of alcohol (as with money, fine dining and other aspects of living large) is just another aspect of Aspen life that's rarely questioned. In this quintessential resort and party town there's always been a fair amount of shot-slamming and beer-chugging in the bars, snifter-sipping by the fire and wine-pouring by master sommeliers.

Today there are 82 establishments with licenses to sell booze within city limits. That's one liquor license for every 80 year-round Aspen residents. While that's in line with other resort towns, Fruita, a similarly sized town near Grand Junction, has a total of 17 liquor licenses in their town, one for every 470 people.

The town has a generally permissive attitude toward drinking and recreational drugs, and police say alcohol is a frequent factor in crimes.

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The College Commitment asks schools to end alcohol ads on local broadcasts of their sporting events and to vote within their conference and the NCAA to end alcohol ads on all televised college sports events.

"College presidents, athletic directors, and coaches are increasingly uncomfortable trying to combat alcohol problems on campus on the one hand, and promoting beer on their sports broadcasts on the other," said George A. Hacker, director of the Alcohol Policies Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which runs the Campaign for Alcohol-Free Sports TV. "In just a few months, 20 percent of NCAA-member schools joined the campaign to sever the link between alcohol advertising and college sports."

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Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Coors wins Senate primary race in Colorado
New York Times, NY, August 11, 2004
The great-grandson of beer baron Adolph Coors handily won the Republican primary for Colorado's U.S. Senate seat, triggering a face-off with the state's Democratic attorney general this fall.

With 98 percent of precincts reporting early Wednesday, Peter Coors, on leave as chairman of Coors Brewing Co., had 200,051 votes, or 61 percent, and former Rep. Bob Schaffer had 130,103 votes, or 39 percent.

Coors, 57, a political novice, said the Senate has 57 lawyers and does not need another one. ``I've said all along the Senate needs more people with business experience,'' he said.

Coors said he supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, and he contends lowering the drinking age would teach responsibility at a younger age. He also has said many of his policies as chairman made good business sense.

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Idaho has served beer on campus before football games in previous years with a waiver. BSU never has had alcohol at its football games, but the board did grant a waiver last year that allowed it to be served in a tent village at the Humanitarian Bowl. BSU is asking for the same thing for its seven home football games, including the Sept. 4 opener against Idaho.

“It would only be allowed in the secured area north of the stadium,” BSU athletic director Gene Bleymaier said. “We would sell tents to businesses and corporations, and the area is not going to be open to the general public. You’d need to be an invited guest.”

Bleymaier said the area would be patrolled by security and wristbands or hand stamps would be required if a person was to consume alcohol.

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Human Resources Committee Chairman Stan Ridgeway recommended they delay action on the issue and let the parties work out an agreement. The issue will come before the committee again on Aug. 23.

Although seven people spoke in favor of the license Monday, the committee heavily weighed the comments from one: Juneau Police Chief Richard Gummow. He recommended the committee protest the license because he said it would increase alcohol-related incidences and cost taxpayers.

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Tuesday, August 10, 2004

A few clicks can get minors liquor
Post Intelligencer, WA, August 9, 2004
All an underage person needs to get booze now is a credit card and a computer.

That's what a bunch of Gonzaga University students found out last month. They ordered liquor, beer and wine and had it delivered to their front doors without ever being questioned about their age.

Armed with full bottles and delivery receipts, the students are demanding that state Attorney General Christine Gregoire investigate several online companies selling and delivering alcohol to minors.

In Washington, state Attorney General Christine Gregoire's staff has not decided what will be done about the Gonzaga request or the practice of online liquor sales, but state attorneys general are likely to act if presented with evidence, as they did in the case of Internet tobacco retailers two years ago, said spokeswoman Lori Takahashi.

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Court Ruling on Campus Alcohol Ads a Step Backwards
Agape Press, MS, August 9, 2004
A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit court in Philadelphia said the ad ban chills free speech and would not reduce the demand for alcohol by underage students. James Fell, a researcher at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, has been on the MADD board of directors since 1999. He says the decision is a step in the wrong direction because it allows the alcohol industry to act irresponsibly.

"The industry standard [for television and radio] is that we will not advertise on programs or in magazines where the adult readership or the adult population in viewing that program is under 70 percent. That's their standard," Fell says. "Now obviously [on] a college campus, at least 50 percent are under the age of 21 -- so I would think that that's violating their own standard."

In addition, Fell suggests both sides of the issue be presented when alcohol ads do appear. "I think if the alcohol industry is going to advertise their product in college newspapers, that for every ad they have there ought to be a counter-ad, paid for by them, about the devastation caused by under-age drinking," he says. There is solid evidence, the researcher says, that a bombardment of alcohol advertising predisposes young people to drink.

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Monday, August 9, 2004

Univ. of New Hampshire To Combat Drinking On Campus
WMUR Channel.com, NH, August 7, 2004
University of New Hampshire officials are considering a plan to minimize abuse of alcohol by students that could include asking them to quit popular outdoor drinking games.

The move was prompted by disturbances last year following several sporting events. In October an estimated 2,500 people rushed the streets after the Red Sox lost a playoff game. Seven people, including six students, were arrested. A similar incident the spring of 2003 led to 87 arrests.

In response, UNH President Ann Weaver Hart formed the Alcohol Planning Group in May to craft a strategy to respond to such high-risk alcohol use on campus.

Rubinstein said the new plan is a work in progress, but said the group has found that the university lacks a wide-ranging plan for dealing with high-risk alcohol and drug use.

Rubinstein said drinking games such as Beer Pong, in which players compete over a large table and try to throw a ball into beer-filled cups to make their opponents drink, make alcohol the center of social events.

University officials plan to take steps to discourage large parties and drinking on front lawns of apartments and fraternity and sorority houses near campus.

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Beer, wine sales debate heats up
The Dallas Morning News, TX, August 7, 2004
With an election about five weeks away, at least five council members - including Mayor Joe Putnam - say they want residents to cast "no" votes. Others are keeping quiet about how they will vote, saying it's a matter that voters - not the council - will decide on Sept. 11.

In addition, the council on Wednesday learned that state provisions limit the city's ability to regulate alcohol sales. And the council decided not to instruct a city commission to study zoning ordinances before the election.

Beer and wine sales in grocery and convenience stores have been the hottest topic in Irving this summer. Supporters say that sales would keep more tax revenue in town, but opponents believe the sales would harm the city's quality of life.

Clem Lear, a member of Irving Citizens for Economic Growth, which supports alcohol sales, said she's glad that council members discussed that the city has some power to enact regulations regarding alcohol sales.

But those powers are limited, said Mark Dyer, co-chair of Irving First, an opposition group. And, he believes, they wouldn't protect the city substantially.

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Friday, August 6, 2004

France probes alcohol damage to unborn
Washington Times, DC, August 6, 2004
A French public prosecutor has started a criminal investigation of the damage caused by alcohol to unborn children, the Independent reported Friday.

If the investigation, based in northern France's Lille community, advances, potential defendants could include the nation's alcohol industry and government, for failing to warn women of the dangers of drinking, even moderately, while pregnant.

The investigation stems from a campaign in Roubaix by a leading pediatrician and his lawyer son, who formally complained to the public prosecutor in the spring.

"The alcohol producers know what the dangers are," Benoit Titran, the lawyer, said. "We are not necessarily trying to force litigation, on the American model. We just want to force the state to accept its responsibilities."

"Many mothers have come forward to bear witness to the problems they have endured with their children, from physical malformations to mental and nervous deficiencies, even after drinking only moderately while pregnant."

More than 6,000 babies born in France each year are believed to suffer from mental or physical damage from "passive consumption" of alcohol in the womb.

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The eight store clerks who completed an hour-long course and took an exam Wednesday will now be given a beer handler's permit, something that will be required in at least 11 cities throughout the county before an employee can sell beer.

Davis and others will teach employees throughout the county the state alcohol laws, how to recognize fake identification cards, when a person is intoxicated and how to refuse to sell beer to a person.

"You don't have to make that sale," he said during the course.

State law requires all businesses that sell beer to train their employees on the laws, but youth in Utah County are still getting alcohol, said Pat Bird, county substance abuse prevention manager.

Two out of five high school students in Utah County have said they've tried alcohol; one out of five have had a drink within the past 30 days, according to a survey by the health department. Last year, 575 youth in Utah County were arrested for drinking alcohol.

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Thursday, August 5, 2004

Oakland closes liquor store it says is a magnet for drug dealers
San Francisco Chronicle, CA, August 4, 2004
Oakland has ordered the closing of a notorious corner liquor store and alleged haven for drug dealers as part of a crackdown on businesses that attract crime.

The move marks the first time the city has tried to revoke a liquor store's use permit based on a nuisance enforcement ordinance that Oakland's City Council adopted last November.

"This puts property owners on notice that they've got to do everything they can to address problems like this, and it gives neighbors hope that the city will do something if they complain,'' said Arturo Sanchez of the city manager's nuisance enforcement unit.

Councilwoman Jane Brunner credited neighbors with prompting city action by organizing and effectively documenting problems with the store. At least 30 neighbors formed a group called West Street Watch, which wrote letters to Alaoudi in 2002 and 2003 and claimed it got no response from the store owner.

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Wednesday, August 4, 2004

Russia Bans Prime-Time Alcohol Ads
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, August 4, 2004
Beer advertising is set to be banned on Russian television between 7am and 10pm because of growing concerns about the number of children who have become addicted to alcohol.

It is a significant step in a country where beer is treated as only slightly stronger than a soft drink. In Moscow, a clinic to treat child alcoholics was opened last year, and senior health officials say the number of children under 14 with an addiction - most often to alcohol - has risen from about 6300 10 years ago to more than 22,000 today.

In Russia, beer is available almost everywhere, at any time, and is a common accessory for morning commuters and the after-school crowd. Half-litre bottles, priced as low as 20 roubles ($1), are lined up at fast-food stalls and in street kiosks alongside bottled water and cartons of fruit juice.

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Tuesday, August 3, 2004

Cost of alcohol, drug abuse examined
Bangor Daily News, ME, August 2, 2004
A study given to lawmakers last week estimates the economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse in Maine was $618 million in 2000, but makes no recommendations on what to do about the problem. That concerns some lawmakers.

"The importance of the number is to give a dimension to the issues of substance abuse in Maine," Sen. Michael Brennan, D-Portland, co-chairman of the Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee said. "I don't think the Legislature or the public recognizes the full economic impact of substance abuse on the state."

Brennan said there were many recommendations for a wide range of prevention and treatment programs proposed in the 1998 study. The study listed 43 recommendations, with funding coming from an increase in the taxes on beer, wine and spirits. He also expressed concern the new study lacked any recommendations to address the problem.

Brennan said the problem of substance abuse has been plaguing Maine for a very long time. He said the state needs to spend more resources on both prevention and treatment and that the 1998 study provided several suggestions for addressing the problem.

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Monday, August 2, 2004

Time for city to get serious about alcohol
Iowa City Press-Citizen, IA, July 31, 2004
A year after Iowa City adopted its 19-only-some-of-the-time bar entry ordinance, a panel of various interests has concluded that there's still an underage drinking problem downtown.

That's hardly a revelation. While some downtown businesses have worked hard to comply with the law, a few still don't do enough. Despite the incredible numbers of students who suffer negative health effects from binge drinking, their campus leaders have done virtually nothing to address the problem let alone acknowledge it. Though pol-ice write more and more alcohol-related tickets, some city councilors waffle on changing the bar-entry age. And ignoring community concern over drunken students damaging property and creating public disturbances, university administrators won't commit to fully funding anti-alcohol programs such as Stepping Up.

When the City Council meets in September to decide if 19-only stays or not, it ought to take a two-pronged approach to once and for all confront this health, public safety and economic issue: raise the bar entry age to 21 at all times - The simplest law will prove the easiest to enforce, and younger students ultimately will find other entertainment and adopt a keg ordinance - To discourage house parties for underage drinkers, a keg ordinance, now the law in 30 other states, would go a long way.

In addition, student government leaders need to accept the seriousness of this issue and address it through alcohol-free events, providing health information about alcohol abuse and publicly taking a stand against illegal drinking. University ad-ministrators can redouble their efforts in those areas as well. Failure to provide this support only undercuts efforts to address this problem - and encourages students to break the law.

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