NEWS
Officials stress responsible drinking during Cinco de Mayo
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by Cara Harshman
Friday, May 2, 2008
The Dane County Sheriff’s Office is teaming up with other law enforcement agencies across the nation to promote responsible driving May 5, when many will be celebrating Cinco de Mayo.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is encouraging people celebrating the holiday with alcohol to designate a sober driver before festivities begin, according to a statement from the Dane County Sheriff’s Office.
“It’s just a situation where the efforts may be more focused on the possibility that there may be more drunk drivers on the road,” said Elise Schaffer, public information officer for the Dane County Sheriff’s Office.
From 2002 to 2006, the safety administration said 43 percent of highway fatalities across the nation on May 5 occurred due to drunk drivers with blood alcohol content of .08 percent and above.
“[Cinco de Mayo is] becoming an increasingly popular holiday for people to come out and celebrate, so they wanted to put more attention on it this year,” Schaffer said.
Alex Gillis, spokesperson for the Immigrant Workers Union, comprised mostly of immigrants from Mexico, said Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Mexican army victory over French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, and is “not something we celebrate that much.”
However, the day is widely celebrated in the United States.
Gillis said he questions the decision to single out Cinco de Mayo as a day to remind Dane County residents of responsible driving.
“I tend to think this is bias and the office is applying some kind of misconceptions about our culture and what we do,” Gillis said. “It sounds very weird in my opinion.”
According to the sheriff’s website, the office did not release a safety warning to residents on St. Patrick’s Day in March, another holiday in which drinking alcohol is a popular way to celebrate.
Michael Florek runs an alcohol education class mainly focused on local college students who receive drinking tickets. He said events like Cinco de Mayo and the Mifflin Street Block Party are closely linked to drinking.
“You can celebrate and you can have fun and it doesn’t always have to be ‘let’s just go get wasted,’” Florek said.
Florek’s class, which has received very high ratings from students, does not aim to get college students to abstain from drinking, but rather teaches them to drink smart. After students take the class, he said they will “never drink the same.”
According to Florek, some house fellows in University of Wisconsin residence halls recommend the class to residents who find themselves in trouble with the law instead of reporting the offense to the university.
“I think many of us don’t understand how much alcohol it takes to get us to a point where we’re too drunk to have fun,” Florek said. “I think we ought to teach people what those points are.”
