Alcohol Industry TV Ad Hit : Taxes: Angry lottery officials demand withdrawal of the commercial that implies that the lottery has not lived up to its promises to schools.

State officials angrily demanded Thursday that alcoholic beverage interests fighting a proposed tax increase withdraw a television commercial that implies that the California Lottery has failed to provide the funds for education as its promoters promised.

Joanne McNabb, communications manager for the California Lottery, said the new ads are misleading and inaccurate because they suggest that the lottery has not given any money to schools. In fact, she said, the lottery has poured $4 billion into education coffers in the last five years.

She said that while the aim of the ads is to discredit Proposition 134, an initiative that would dramatically increase taxes on beer, wine and distilled spirits, it may actually do more damage to the lottery than anything else.

“It certainly could undermine public confidence and player confidence in the lottery and could therefore hurt the lottery’s ability to raise money for education,” she said. “In other words, this ad can cost schools money.”

Officials with Taxpayers for Common Sense, a political committee formed by the industry to oppose the tax increase proposals, said they would consider the withdrawal request. However, they said it would probably be several days before they make a decision and that the commercial will run in the meantime.

The ad tries to link promises made in a 1984 lottery campaign to those now being made by supporters of Proposition 134, who say the revenue from the higher alcoholic beverage taxes would be used to pay for programs to battle drug and alcohol abuse.

In the ad, an obviously exhausted schoolteacher looks up at the camera as she appears to be grading papers and says in a tired voice, “Remember those promises about all that lottery money for schools? I wonder where it all went. Well, now they’re at it again with this foolish proposition.”

The 30-second spot is one of three commercials the organization is airing statewide in a new $1-million television advertising campaign. It is expected to run two to four weeks.

Rick Manter, the industry organization’s executive director, said the ad was not meant to criticize the running of the California Lottery but to draw attention to claims that were made about the games of chance.

“We are not trying to besmirch the reputation of the people running the lottery. That’s the last thing we would do,” Manter said. “The (1984) campaign is what we are talking about and the promises that were made that it was going to solve the (school) funding crisis, and it has not.”

But McNabb said that whatever the intent of the ads, the message they appear to convey is that the lottery is not providing money for schools.

She acknowledged that some people may have concluded from the campaign of 1984 that the lottery would be a major funding source for education, but she said the Lottery Act itself was “very clear that the funding is supplemental to state revenues.”

“The lottery has more than fulfilled what the proponents and opponents said in their ballot arguments that it would raise for education,” she said.

The ballot arguments predicted that the games of chance would raise $500 million to $600 million a year for education. In the fiscal year 1988-89 the lottery raised more than $1 billion and in the last fiscal year raised $980 million. The lottery revenue accounts for about 3% of school budgets and is distributed to local school districts by a formula based on student population.

Proposition 134, the initiative that prompted the ads, would increase the per-gallon tax on wine from a penny to $1.29; on beer from 4 cents to 57.5 cents and on distilled spirits from $1 to $8.40.