Arkansas Arrest Made Charge: Drinking Beer at Home
Prohibitionist Approach Towards Alcohol
Speaker Hastert Pledges To Kill Death Tax
Convenience Store Industry to Eliminate Paper Processes
MADD’s Drug Campaign Blasts Beer
Canada Gets Tough on Drunk Drivers
Proposed Legislation Calls
For Life Sentences
Europeans and Men Are Still On Top
OSHA Update
Congress Votes to Slow OSHA Ergo Rules
Insuring Your Business
Overcoming Disaster with Business
Income Insurance
On July 1, 1999, the U.S. Senate turned back the attempt by Senator Frank Lautenberg (NJ) to mandate that the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), directed by General McCaffrey, link its one-billion dollar anti-illegal drug media campaign with efforts to reduce illegal underage purchase and consumption of licensed beverages.
The amendment to the $27.7 billion dollar TreasuryPostal Appropriations bill was tabled on a procedural vote, which passed 58-40. Senator Inouye of Hawaii was absent and Senator McCain voted present. NBWA urged Senators to vote “YEA” on the tabling motion.
ONDCP’s campaign curently targets illegal, illicit drugs including crack, heroin and other drugs, which create a criminal culture in cities and towns across America. The Lautenberg amendment, which attempted to link beer with illegal drugs, received furious opposition from NBWA and the beer industry.
Literally every Neo-Prohibitionist group, especially the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), were aggressively pushing enactment of the Lautenberg amendment. These groups want to turn public opinion against the beer industry by linking a healthy and legal product with illegal, illicit drugs.
More government representatives understand the difference between beer and illegal drugs.This is a result of the stark psychological differences between addiction to heroin, for example, and moderate and responsible consumption of malt beverages. In part, this is also a result of efforts within local communities in preventing underage illegal purchase and consumption of alcohol. Beer wholesalers continue to play a vital role in making the public aware of the problems associated with underage drinking and have remained part of the solution.
NBWA publicly outlined all of the programs that brewers, wholesalers and retailers undertake to have “zero tolerance” of illegal purchase and consumption of our products. The Lautenberg amendment was not about fighting underage drinking. It was an attempt to make beer an unsavory product.
A Senate Key-Vote insert is included in this issue of Beer Perspectives. Please contact your Senators regarding their role in turning back the Lautenberg amendment.
Government Study
States .08 Ineffective
Clinton’s Administrative Findings
Flawed
A government study has revealed statistics which conclude that reducing legal Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) levels from .10 to .08 does not reduce the number or severity of alcohol-related auto crashes.
The United States General Accounting Office (GAO), referred to as the “Investigative Arm” of Congress, says that any claims as to the effectiveness of a BAC of .08 versus .10 cannot be supported because, in the past, researchers have used “flawed methodology or ignored other factors that could contribute to a lower fatality count.”
GAO’s findings are contrary to those endorsed in 1998 by the Clinton Administration, which were used to support a bill that would have required all states to enact and enforce .08 BAC laws or face severe reductions in Federal highway funds. This national mandate was never made part of the final Highway Bill.
The policies and positions of the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the current BAC laws, (so far sixteen states have a .08 BAC), and other .08 BAC laws and drunk driving countermeasures. Seven published studies comparing the effect of .08 BAC laws on the number and severity of crashes involving alcohol, including three studies released earlier this year, were also used to compile the GAO’s findings.
Moreover, accidents involving alcohol have declined significantly over the last 15 years. This can be attributed to the public’s awareness of the possible outcomes of drinking and driving, as well as the influx of educational programs into academic curriculum and State Department of Transportation licensing and alcohol awareness education programs. Many states have .08 legislation being proposed on the legislative level and the GAO’s conclusive findings will no doubt play a part in the disposition of those pieces of legislation.
Arkansas Arrest Made Charge: Drinking Beer at Home
Arkansas is cracking down on extreme criminal activity in Forrest City - namely, drinking beer?
According to the National Journal’s Hotline, Arkansas Mayor, Larry Bryant, says he is tired of “driving down the street and seeing folks drinking beer.”
The Mayor wants the city to issue citations for public drinking, which, in his mind, is a person’s front porch. “If I can drive in my vehicle with my child and see people drinking, they should be stopped,” says Bryant. “To me, if I can see them, it’s public. Where are my rights as a...citizen?”
The Mayor’s rights as a citizen, according to City Attorney, Knox Kinney, do not extend to Forrest City residential front porches. Kinney doubts the charges would hold up in a court of law. “I just can’t see officers arresting people on their front porches with a beer in their hands.”
This is one more attempt by the Neo-Prohibitionists to try and take beer out of the culture. NBWA needs every wholesaler to be proactive in their communities and talk about the important American history of beer, the healthy aspects of moderate consumption and the economic impact the beer industry has on the U.S. economy.
Prohibitionist Approach Towards Alcohol
The following was contributed by Dr. David Hanson, Sociology Professor at the State University of New York at Potsdam.
“Alcohol is the dirtiest drug we have. It permeates and damages all tissue. No other drug can cause the same degree of harm that it does.”
“Alcohol is harmful to the body.”
“Alcohol is a poison, and drinking it might lead to death.”
“Alcohol is toxic (no level of consumption indicated).”
“The effects of alcohol on men (no level of consumption indicated) are that hormone levels change, causing lower sex drive and enlarged breasts.”
“Alcohol is a gateway drug, leading people into illicit drug use.”
“Alcohol (no level of consumption indicated) can cause deterioration of the heart muscle.”
Astonishingly, all of these statements, which are very misleading at best, were not made by prohibitionists of old, but by officials representing governmental agencies of today. More importantly, the comments are not based on scientific evidence but instead seem to reflect a neo-prohibitionist effort to stigmatize alcohol.
The effort to stigmatize alcohol includes promoting the prohibitionist belief that there is no difference between moderate drinking and alcohol abuse—the two are portrayed as one and the same. This leads the U.S. Department of Education to direct schools and colleges to reject educational programs, which promote responsible drinking among adults, and instead favor a simplistic call for total abstinence.
Part of this oversimplified approach is the notion that alcohol is a dangerous gateway drug that seduces the user to begin using illegal drugs. The supposed “proof” provided is that most people who are involved with illicit drugs drank alcohol initially. Of course, most illicit drug users also drank milk, ate candy bars, and drank cola previously.
But don’t annoy the neo-prohibitionists with evidence or logic.
Federal agencies also systemically attempt to equate legal alcohol consumption with illegal drug use. For example, federal guidelines direct agencies to substitute “alcohol and drug use” with alcohol and other drug use, to replace “substance abuse” with “alcohol and other drug abuse,” and to avoid use of the term “responsible drinking” altogether.
Alcohol is also frequently associated with crack cocaine and other illegal drugs by discussing them in the same paragraph. Often the effort is more blatant. A poster picturing a wine cooler warns, “Don’t be fooled. This is a drug.”
Technically, this assertion is correct. Any substance, salt, vitamins, water, food, etc, that alters the functioning of the body, is a drug. But the word “drug” has negative connotations and the attempt is clearly to stigmatize a legal product that is used pleasurably in moderation by most adults.
In stigmatizing alcohol as a ‘drug,” however, neo-prohibitionists may be inadvertently trivializing the use of illegal drugs and thereby encourage their use. Or, especially among youngsters, these zealots may be creating the false impression that parents who use alcohol in moderation are drug abusers whose good example should be rejected by their children. Thus, this misguided effort to equate alcohol with illicit drugs is likely to be counterproductive.
Instead of stigmatizing alcohol and trying either to scare or force people into abstinence, we need to recognize that it is not alcohol itself but rather the misuse that is the problem. The vast majority of American adults do in fact use alcohol in moderation to enhance the quality of their lives with no ill effects. The neo-prohibitionist attack on alcohol is proving to be not only deceptive and ineffective, but also dangerously counterproductive in the effort to teach the responsible use of alcohol.
For comment or more information contact Professor David Hanson at the Sociology Department at the State University of New York at Potsdam, New York, 13676, or at hansondj@potsdam.edu.
Speaker Hastert Pledges To Kill Death Tax
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert (IL-14), along with Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (MS), has promised to fight to end the inheritance tax, as we know it. In a recent speech to the American Trucking Associations, the Speaker pledged to eventually eliminate the tax on all inheritances, which can run as high as 55 percent for the top bracket. “We’re going to cut the 55 percent tax,” said Hastert, “and hope to eliminate the death tax altogether….over ten years.” The Speaker has also said that Congress will work on lowering capital gains taxes, which he mentioned are “too high.” The proposed FY2000 tax package will eliminate $800 million dollars in tax cuts over ten years.
Convenience Store Industry to Eliminate Paper Processes
The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) sponsored their first Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) Seminar: The Basics and Beyond, May 5-6, 1999, in St. Louis, Missouri. This seminar is one step toward the elimination of paper in the convenience store industry. Small-to-medium sized convenience store trading partners may soon be requesting their beer distributors to do business electronically.
As part of the NACS EDI educational series, the purpose of the seminar was to educate attendees about EDI in a convenience store environment — the benefits it provides, the tools available for implementation and the experience of others. Among the attendees were representatives from 7-Eleven Food Stores, Anheuser-Busch, Citgo Express, Pinnacle Corporation, Thornton’s Gas and Food Marts and viaLink Company. John Hervey, Gerke & Associates, Inc., who serves as Technical Resource for the NACS EDI Standards Committee, Lisa Stewart of Impact 21 Group, Mark Crider of Tosco, Inc., and Randy Stanford of Miller Brewing Company conducted the seminar.
NACS initiated an effort to make recommendations on technology standards and best practices in 1995. As a result, an EDI Standards Committee was formed to investigate alternatives to exchanging business data by mail, fax and the like between trading partners. The working committee was charged with identifying the transaction needs of the industry and adapting open, non-proprietary standards, writing guidelines, educating the industry and encouraging implementation.
Today, pricebook maintenance, fulfillment, and settlement, the three business processes critical to the convenience store industry, can all be done through paperless transactions. Convenience Store Functional Profiles, EDI documents specific to the convenience store industry, allow for the electronic exchange of information via EDI rather than through paper-based transactions common to the convenience store industry. Convenience Store Functional Profiles will be published in the Uniform Communication Standard (UCS) Implementation Guidelines book this summer and will be available through the Uniform Code Council.
For more details about NBWA’s involvement in the NACS EDI educational series or about electronic commerce in the beer industry, please contact Susan Hilaski, NBWA manager, technology and industry information, at (800) 300-6417, ext.124. To learn more about the use of EDI in the convenience store industry or about the NACS EDI Standards Committee, call NACS headquarters at (703) 684-3600 or visit www.cstorecentral.com.
Don’t Ignore The Signs CSPI’s At
It Again
American Beverage Institute Warns: Signs May Be Forced On Your
Establishment!
In their latest assault on the responsible use of alcohol beverages, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) launched a campaign to get all restaurants, taverns, bars and retail outlets that sell alcohol to post warning signs alerting customers to the “dangers” of beer, wine and spirits.
They don’t see this as a voluntary effort. They want laws - local, state and federal laws - to force retailers to promote their Neo-Prohibitionist agenda.
“Since the (current warning label) is found only on containers, consumers served by the glass or pitcher in bars and restaurants don’t receive the benefits of the container warning,” CSPI’s Website states. Large posters slapped on the walls in the entryways of restaurants and bars will remedy that. Besides, they argued, warning posters have much more room than those “barely legible” warning labels on bottles, allowing for “additional information tailored to community needs.”
Among their recommendations: warnings about drinks and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome; drinks and veterans’ health issues; drinks and adult drownings; drinks and boating fatalities; and drinks and suicide, to name a few.
MADD’s Drug Campaign Blasts Beer
Predictably, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has taken their advertising campaign one step further in what they are calling “the war on drugs.”
In their latest commercials, three ads state that people who don’t know that teenagers can die from alcohol are enabling the slow death of our youth. “Say nothing, do nothing, stop nothing,” states an advertisement displaying heroin, cocaine and other illegal, illicit drugs before it moves to show a can of beer. “If you are under 21 and you think there’s a difference,” the ad warns, “you are dead wrong. Alcohol kills more people…than cocaine, heroin and all illegal drugs combined.” The statistics MADD uses are not cited in any publication, on their Website, or in their commercials.
Comparing a substance that is legally distributed and regulated, to illegal, illicit drugs that can cause death on contact even at first-use, deters from the actual cause of underage consumption. Wholesalers spend thousands of dollars annually to educate families and young people of the dangers involved with underage consumption. Working together, parents and teachers have been aiming towards a common goal: helping young people understand why it’s not okay to drink until you are 21. Wholesalers choose to remain part of the solution to the problem, rather than sending mixed messages to teens, which most definitely cause more confusion than education.
Canada Gets Tough on Drunk
Drivers
Proposed Legislation Calls For Life Sentences
Legislation which would double the fines or penalties for driving under the influence of alcohol has been introduced by Canadian Justice Minister Anne McLellan. The proposed legislation calls for longer license suspensions, double the maximum fine for first-time convictions of drunk driving, and life imprisonment for those who kill others in an auto accident while under the influence of alcohol. The bill would also allow judges to require the use of an alcohol ignition “interlock,” which prohibits those under the influence of alcohol to start their autos, and would make it easier for police officers to obtain a motorist’s blood sample.
Justice Minister McLellan proposed the new penalties to specifically include a provision for life sentences because she feels that “drunk driving is completely preventable, which is why we should condemn it so clearly.” However, Bloc Quebecois, a political group of Canada, opposes this controversial portion of the bill, stating that [drinking and driving] must be considered in relation to other crimes.
Under current law, a maximum sentence of fourteen years in prison may be handed down to an individual who is charged with manslaughter or killing another person while driving under the influence of alcohol. Most motorists convicted of manslaughter as a result of drunk driving receive approximately 8 years in prison.
Europeans and Men Are Still On Top
The stats are out. Coming in with a close second and an “A” for effort, Americans still drink slightly less beer than our European friends, according to an international survey by Maritz Ameripoll. American beer drinkers consume an average of nineteen beers per month while Europeans average about twenty-two beers per month.
Men on both continents have edged out female consumption of beer, leaving European and American women only about 15 percent behind their beer-per-month totals.
Additionally, countries are buying at the store as well as at the tavern. Consumption of beer in the United States tends to rally near the nest, as a majority of us (63 percent) drink at home, save for the 21-34 year old American crowd, who prefer to spend about 10 percent more time than the older crowd drinking socially at bars and restaurants. However, in Europe, where folks are out and about, consumption of beer is split down the middle. The foreign folks drink in public about half of the time, giving Americans the “home-fridge” advantage.
OSHA Update
Congress Votes to Slow OSHA Ergo Rules
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s chief Administrator Charles Jeffress has announced OSHA’s plans to publish its ergonomics rule by the fall. Additionally, Martha Kent, Director of OSHA’s Safety Standards Program, announced that OSHA would also release three separate labor rulemakings before year’s end. The agency will release the ergonomics rule as well as new rules on safety and health programs and a final record keeping rule.
However, the House Committee on Education and the Workplace has passed Representative Roy Blunt's (MO-7) "Workplace Preservation Act" bill, H.R. 987, by a vote of 23-18. H.R. 987 prevents OSHA from enacting these new ERGO regulations until a scientific study is completed by the National Academy of Sciences. A vote on the Blunt legislation by the full house is expected before the August recess.
Insuring Your
Business
Overcoming Disaster with Business Income
Insurance
Imagine trying to run your business without a source of income. Impossible, right? Yet this is exactly what some businesses face after a disaster forces them to suspend daily operations. While they struggle just to get back on their feet again, the bills continue to roll in and pile up. Sometimes, these businesses are never able to open their doors again.
You can avoid an ugly situation like this with Business Income Insurance. This policy helps you meet your expenses if a fire, natural disaster, or other covered peril shuts you down. It is designed to provide income that your business would have generated under normal circumstances, allowing you to meet your fixed expenses such as loans, payroll, etc.
Extra expenses are those necessary to speed up your recovery after an insured loss, such as renting and moving to substitute facilities, hiring temporary assistance, and renting or purchasing new equipment. The Insurance Services Office (ISO) offers one business income form with extra expense coverage, and one without it. You may also purchase extra expense coverage separately.
What should you know about policy limits?
Most business income policies limit coverage to an interruption due to direct physical loss of, or damage to, property at the insured site. In addition, the wreckage or loss must have been caused by a covered peril. Keep in mind that you will need special coverage for boiler and machinery breakdowns or off-premises power failure.
It’s also important to understand that business income insurance only pays for the length of time that it realistically should take to restore damaged property. Due to this time element, it’s wise to identify your exposures and plan ahead so that action can be taken immediately if a disaster occurs. Here are some suggestions:
• Identify the machinery or equipment that is most vital to your operations, and arrange for backups.
• Find alternative sources for the materials you need, just in case something should happen to your major supplier.
• Create a list of all actions necessary to resume operations on a full or part- time basis after a disaster.
There are many things to consider when it comes to making sure your business can survive a crisis. We’re here to help you sort through it all and find the business income policy that best meets your needs.
This article was brought to you by NBWA’s Members’ Insurance Program. With specific coverages for beer wholesalers as well as a comprehensive loss control program, this program offers beer distributors the comfort of knowing their business is covered adequately and correctly. Get a quote today and see the difference!
For further information about NBWA’s Members’ Insurance Program, please contact:
Hylant MacLean - Managing General Agent
888)449-5268
FAX: (216)447-4088