Posts Tagged ‘Underage Drinking’

There’s yet another effort underway in the state Legislature to try to change the decades-old laws that forbid beer sales in convenience stores and grocery stores across the Commonwealth.

Right now, you also can’t buy a six-pack of beer in a beer distributor in Pennsylvania — you can only buy a full case by law. You are, however, able to buy individual six-packs of beer from bars and restaurants that have liquor licenses which permit them to make such sales.

According to a story this week in The Philadelphia Inquirer, state  Sen. John C. Rafferty Jr., a Montgomery County Republican, is the latest state lawmaker to try his hand at expanding the legal sale of individual six-packs through beer distributors and grocery and convenience stores across the state, arguing that it’s about “consumer choice” and opening up freer competition for beer sales. Some convenience store executives, including Stan Sheetz, the CEO of the Sheetz convenience store chain, support the idea, according to the Inquirer. “We support this bill because it treats adults like adults and it protects the rights of beer drinkers,” Sheetz told the paper at a rally held in Harrisburg to promote the effort. His company has tried in the past to gain permission to sell individual six-packs of beer but has been stymied in the courts. That hasn’t deterred his company, however.  “Our beer laws are backward, they’re counter-intuitive, they’re inefficient, and they’re hypocritical,” he told the Inquirer.

Image credit: © iStockphoto.com/janisr

Well, he just may be right about Pennsylvania’s beer sale laws. They may truly be backward and counter-intuitive and inefficient and even hypocritical. But that’s fine, because they’re also smart. There are already plenty of places to buy beer here, at beer distributors by the case and in bars and restaurants by the six-pack.  No one who wants to buy beer is being denied the opportunity to buy the stuff.  But we certainly don’t need to make beer sales available at every street corner of every town and city across this state. We’ve got enough problems with under-aged drinking, drunk driving, alcohol-related crimes and other social ills caused by alcohol abuse.

Make it easier to buy and consume beer across the state just to allow a bigger revenue stream for stores and beer companies? That just doesn’t make sense from any standpoint at all.  It’s not an idea that would get a great reception from groups that are fighting these same kinds of problems every day, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

That would be a decision that would likely mean more alcohol-related vehicle accidents, crimes and incidents of under-aged drinking.

It’s a bad idea, a terrible precedent and an idea with no social merit. In fact, it’s irresponsible and wrong.

We need more libraries on street corners, more senior centers, more drug and alcohol treatment programs and more youth centers.

What we don’t need are more places to buy beer.

With the December holidays in full swing, from Hanukkah to Kwanzaa to Christmas to New Year’s Eve,  it’s a perfect time for us all to remember and carefully consider the dangers of  drinking and driving as we celebrate family, friends and festive events.

According to the activist group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), last year there were 11,773 fatalities nationally involving a driver with an illegal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or greater.  That’s 11,773 too many drunk driving deaths.  And with this year’s holidays now upon us, according to MADD, the dangers caused by drunk drivers increases because vehicle travel is heavier on the roadways and drunk driving increases. In 2007, between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, 1,495 people were killed nationally by drunk drivers, according to MADD.  In 2006, 1,566 people were killed.

Sobriety checkpoints will be set up across the nation this holiday season to prevent drunk driving. Image credit: © iStockphoto.com/sdominick

We all are responsible, starting with each of us individually, to choose not to consume alcoholic beverages and then hop into our vehicles and drive when our driving skills are impaired.

Bartenders, waiters, waitresses and restaurant and club owners are also responsible through liquor liability laws and dram shop liability to  ensure that none of their customers drinks so much that they are visibly intoxicated and a danger to others on the roads.  In Pennsylvania, and in other states, there are training programs for bartenders and wait staffs so that they learn when and how to stop customers who are drinking too much.  The Pennsylvania Liquor Control  Board (LCB) offers its  Responsible Alcohol  Management Program (RAMP), which offers a full range of important training.

That’s a good thing, but it doesn’t end there.

We are all stewards of this responsibility if we hold parties and serve alcohol, or if we attend parties where alcohol is being served.  You can be sued and held responsible for damages if someone is at your gala, drinks too much, drives away and is involved in a vehicle accident. You have to know to say no to your friends and loved ones if they party too much.  If someone is visibly intoxicated, don’t let them drive away on their own.  Get them in a taxicab or find them a ride with someone who has not been drinking. Let them sleep in your spare room. Do whatever it takes to prevent a tragedy.

Think of it this way — if your teen-aged son or daughter is out driving this holiday season, would you rather not allow drunk drivers to be out there on the streets with them, sharing the roads and plowing into them? That’s one reason why we all have to be vigilant for each other.  It doesn’t always happen to other families.  Such tragedies have perhaps happened to someone in your family, or a friend’s family. No more.

Starting tomorrow, states across the nation will begin stepping up their holiday drunk driving enforcement efforts as the national Governors Highway Safety Association joins the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and state and local law enforcement agencies to launch an extensive holiday drunk driving crackdown across the nation through Jan. 3, 2010. Here in Pennsylvania, police departments will be conducting increased DUI enforcement as part of the Operation Safe Holiday campaign.  More than 600 municipal police and all State Police Troops are expected to participate, according to the group.  Last year during the holiday crackdown, 262 DUI citations were written.

Make their work easier — don’t drink and drive.  Don’t become one of the statistics.  Don’t hurt or kill someone else or someone you love by driving drunk and getting into a serious accident.

Have a great time this holiday season, but let’s be responsible and careful out there.

The recent tragic deaths of two young people from excessive drinking at New Jersey colleges have prompted action in the New Jersey Legislature. Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini introduced a bill known as the 911 Legislation or Lifeline Legislation, which provides amnesty for minors who seek medical attention for themselves or friends who have become dangerously intoxicated.

Statistics from the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence – New Jersey (NCADD-NJ) reveal the dangerous risks that young people take by binge drinking: Almost 39 percent of New Jersey seventh and eighth grade students say that they have consumed alcohol. Almost 80 percent of New Jersey high school students admit to consuming alcohol at least once. What’s more, minors who consume alcohol tend to consume in much greater quantities than adults: Minors consume on average five drinks while adults consume only two or three drinks while drinking.

Medical amnesty policies have been enacted by many local colleges including the University of Pennsylvania medical amnesty policy and Lehigh University medical amnesty policy. While these colleges’ medical amnesty policies protect students from repercussions under university codes of conduct, the medical amnesty provisions do not prevent law enforcement from charging students with violations of Pennsylvania laws related to underage drinking.

For this reason, some states have decided to enact medical amnesty legislation to shield from prosecution underage minors who seek medical attention for themselves or a friend during an alcohol-related emergency. When introducing the 911 Legislation to the New Jersey Legislature this year, Assemblywoman Angelini noted that the bill does not condone underage drinking, but encourages minors and young adults to make a life-saving decision during the critical period when a dangerously intoxicated youth can be saved with medical intervention. After approval from the New Jersey Assembly in late May, the 911 Legislation awaits hearing in the New Jersey Senate.