Protesters Say Suds and Sea Don’t Mix : Alcohol: Free beer and Anheuser-Busch merchandise hurt Sea World’s family image, charge picketers at park.

Sea World may be encouraging children to drink by distributing free beer and selling merchandise featuring a beer company logo, said protesters who picketed outside the popular marine park Friday.

“Sea World used to be a place where we could take our kids to see wonderful marine life, and it is a real change for us to come here and see all of these alcohol products,” said demonstrator Judi Strang, vice president of community concerns for San Diego’s 9th District PTA. “To link alcohol consumption with a place as appealing to kids as Sea World is just not right.”

Strang and 34 other demonstrators from the group “San Diegans Who Know When to Say When to Sea World,” waved picket signs and handed out flyers to visitors outside the entrance on South Shores Road protesting Thursday’s opening of a hospitality center inside the park that offers free beer and sells products embossed with the Anheuser-Busch logo.

The St. Louis-based company purchased Sea World and several other theme parks in November, 1989 for $1.1 billion.

Protesters say that providing free beer to adults and vending Anheuser-Busch merchandise at the hospitality center, an open-air tent at the east end of the 60-acre marine park, could influence visiting children to view alcohol consumption as acceptable.

They complain of mints and salt-and-pepper shakers fashioned like mini beer cans, child sized T-shirts bearing the company’s stamp, and a mini-brewery at another location in the park.

The demonstrators are also concerned that the 10 Clydesdale horses stabled for public view behind the hospitality tent are easily recognized as symbols of Anheuser-Busch, which uses the animals in advertisements.

Although the critics dislike beer being promoted, they’re not opposing the actual sale of beer elsewhere at the 27-year-old park.

“I don’t think my kids should be in an environment where alcohol is being promoted,” said picketer Josie Thurber, 20 of San Diego.

But Sea World officials said the brewing controversy is simply a misunderstanding about the concept of the hospitality centers, which are common at Anheuser-Busch parks nationwide.

“I think it mainly involves a lack of understanding about what a hospitality center is,” Sea World General Manager Mike Cross said. “The hospitality center is a taste-testing center for adult guests that includes displays on consumer awareness and other programs. We only allow two 10-ounce beers tested and don’t allow people to leave the area where the beer is distributed.”

Another Sea World spokesman, Daniel LeBlanc, said that selling candies packaged like beer cans had been discontinued three weeks ago after a protester said the candies would appeal to children.

“It never occurred to us, but nonetheless, to be on the side of safety, we pulled the product,” he said.

He also referred to the small brewery as a “stove-top operation” used to test beer. Under state law, because the park is owned by the brewery, Sea World cannot sell or give away Anheuser-Busch beer unless it is actually produced at the park.

Still, protesters said they would not be appeased until beer-related merchandise is removed from the park.

“We ultimately would like them to remove all promotional products and put Sea World back to the way it was,” protester Susan Rodenberger of Del Mar said. “We don’t want them to stop selling alcohol, but to limit it to being sold in confined places within the park.”