Alcohol Ban at Arts Center Lauded

Congratulations to the Lancaster City Council for their good sense and courage in banning the sale of alcohol at their new Performing Arts Center. It isn’t necessary to drink in order to enjoy oneself.

A former Lancaster mayor said he didn’t think he had ever seen anyone “falling around drunk at a theater,” a very naive statement. How many times do people manage to find their car, get the key in the ignition and drive just fine until they are arrested and found to have a blood-alcohol level two times higher than allowed by law?

In the same issue of The Times was a story on a young woman killed at a hotel where she and her friends had rented rooms in order to drink after their prom. Some parents apparently feel that condoning drinking in underage people is the norm, and this attitude is passed on to their children, often with tragic results.

Susan Davis, the city’s cultural arts superintendent, said the staff’s only reason for recommending alcohol was to raise money, and “You don’t get big bucks from selling Coke and a brownie.”

Creative minds should be able to come up with fund-raising ideas that are not harmful to people’s health and lives.

LINDA MANN

Northridge