Amid the ongoing controversy over ID requirements for Madison bars, the state Assembly is poised to take bar reform to the next level. There is a bill on the table that would give establishments the right to sue underage drinkers in civil court for damages up to $1,000. The bill in question borrowed heavily from a state law that Alaska implemented 10 years ago and has the support of the Tavern League of Wisconsin and the Green Bay Police Department. Oh, and one more thing – it may be the most preposterous measure brought before the Assembly in the past year, a legislative year that has seen its fair share of Assembly absurdities.
To begin, I may be a delusional and intoxicated college student who deserves to be hauled off to civil court and fined into indentured servitude. But last time I checked, Wisconsin is not Alaska, but in fact a distinct state located in the Lower 48. It may be true that Alaska is the world’s last great wilderness, complete with vast expanses of pristine natural beauty and home to people with remarkable outdoor savvy and a serious libertarian streak. It’s not true, however, that Alaska and Wisconsin are comparable in terms of state government and civil law. Alaska is geographically and politically an outlier state – the fact that a law was successful in Alaska is weak evidence that it will be beneficial for the state of Wisconsin. Furthermore, the version of this law that was eventually passed in Alaska included the option that underage drinkers convicted in civil court could pay a $300 fine and attend an alcohol use reform program, while the version that is in the Assembly right now includes only a $1,000 fine.
This bill implements a harsh fine that cannot be substituted with a lesser fine and education, and one questions its effectiveness as a measure to curb underage drinking. Rep. Andre Jaque, R-Bellevue, thinks, “Underage drinking is a tremendous public health concern in Wisconsin … and deserves a vigorous response.” His argument is reasonable, but this bill represents a poor public health strategy. Good public health measures are grounded on education at a community level, and both education and reform are noticeably absent in this bill. An even more concerning legal issue in this bill is that it makes bars, not the police, responsible for punishing underage drinking, and even puts them in a position to profit from underage drinking. It is as if the state government has thrown up its hands in resignation over the problem of underage drinking, passed off the responsibility of enforcement to the bars themselves.
The net result is a law that implements hefty fines on under-21-year-olds – which in reality means fines on the families of underage drinkers – and contains a skewed financial incentive for bars to admit and then fine them. The most unjust part of the proposed law is that it gives profitable businesses the right to collect thousands of dollars in damages from underage drinkers. It takes both an underager and a bar for underage drinking to occur, and both are at fault when it happens. It is clear this bill before the Assembly sides with the bar and places most of the blame on underage drinkers in a heavy-handed way that benefits businesses at the expense of youth who would be better served by a law that values reform over punishment. Wisconsin bars thus stand to profit from a “tremendous public health concern” that the state has been helpless to resolve.
If the Assembly truly is concerned by underage drinking, they might consider policies with the goal of preventing underage drinking in the first place. Making sure high school students have access to chemical guidance counseling, for instance. Rather than providing incentives for bars to take underagers to court, a better use of the Assembly’s considerable power would be to think up incentives for the under-21 crowd to stay sober.
With that said, this underage writer could really use a drink. He might even toast Jaque’s health and lifelong prosperity. Of course, this is all hypothetical and would never take place at the Plaza Tavern on Henry Street, because, of course, how would he know about that den of vice?
Charles Godfrey ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in math and physics.
