Beer Sales at Gas Stations

The Times’ story (April 6) on proposed legislation in Sacramento to expand beer and wine sales to gas stations and mini-marts or convenience stores exposed another outrageous attempt by the powerful liquor and gasoline industry lobbies to further exacerbate the problems of alcoholism and drunk driving in California for their own personal profits.

Assemblyman Gary Condit’s (D-Ceres) bill (AB 937) will do three things: (1) increase drunk driving, and especially by young people, (2) increase law enforcement problems created by liquor, beer and wine, (3) create thousands of new drug-alcohol crime centers in communities already overwhelmed by out-of-control street crimes.

The Attorney General’s Commission on the Prevention of Drug & Alcohol Abuse last year (May, 1986) warned that “drunk driving is the most lethal form of substance abuse among our youth, with alcohol being the leading cause of death among young people.”

Numerous witnesses appearing before the commission and reports studied by its members established time after time the connection between increased drinking and availability of alcohol. The Condit bill would vastly expand the number of alcohol outlets and make law enforcement and supervision a nightmare.

The commission in its final report made this key finding:

“The steady reduction of positions in (the budget of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control), beginning in 1978 and continuing through the 1984-1985 fiscal year, has eroded their ability to enforce the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act. In fiscal year 1978-1979, ABC regulated 59,220 licensees with 458 positions; by fiscal year 1984-1985, ABC regulated 71,123 licensees with only 362 positions. During this six-year period, while the licensee population increased by 20.1%, staffing was reduced by 20.96%.”

One witness before the commission, an expert on alcohol problems at the University of California at Berkeley, testified that “the ABC system has been absolutely devastated in the last five years. There are a total of two enforcement officers for the entire County of San Francisco. And these are folks who are supposed to be enforcing the laws against serving minors. There is simply no way they can do it under the present staffing situation.”

Transferring more power to the ABC in Sacramento will seriously undermine local efforts to control crime and alcoholism.

The attorney general’s commission strongly recommended against further centralization of alcohol control in Sacramento. It found that “state procedures are too formal and intimidating, which discourages” communities and voluntary organizations from trying to control local alcohol problems.

We need more and stronger local control over alcohol outlets in communities, a Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control that provides more enforcement and less kowtowing to the liquor and retail industries and stronger police involvement in prohibiting illegal sales of liquor, beer and wine to teen-agers and others.

LU HAAS

Pacific Palisades

Haas was a member of the California Attorney General’s Commission on the Prevention of Drug & Alcohol Abuse and drafted recommendations for tightening controls and enforcement of laws and regulation government alcohol outlets.