Teetotaler’s Reward : Should a club soda cost as much as a scotch? Maybe not if you’re a designated driver.

I’ll get right to it. I don’t drink. Nothing judgmental intended here. It’s just than when it comes to the old firewater, I can take it or leave it. This has, surprisingly, turned out to be the cause of problems.

For instance, when the gang’s out celebrating, guess who gets passed the car keys? But chauffeuring tipsy revelers around Los Angeles isn’t really what burns my teetotaling bottom.

No, it’s the fact that while out on the town as Mr. Responsible, I’m still shelling out cocktail prices for a club soda or a glass of orange juice--one that isn’t even fresh-squeezed.

“I try to have all my drinks priced pretty even,” says Cal Ferraro, owner of The Dresden Room, where, on Tuesdays through Saturday evenings, when Marty & Elayne perform, no beverage leaves the bar at under $3 a pop, alcoholic or not.

A soft drink will also cost you $3 at the Roxbury, a glass of mineral water $5 at the Olive.

“We’ve been so busy. I can’t afford to have kids take a booth and just drink pop or coffee,” the Dresden Room’s Ferraro explains.

So, what are the clear-headed to do?

“The responsibility rests with the consumer who wants to be the designated driver,” says Carolee Newman, Community Relations Specialist for the L.A. County Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

MADD suggests that when you go to your favorite restaurant or cocktail lounge with your friends, you make arrangements in advance to be the designated driver.

Ask your server if the establishment will agree to provide you with free non-alcohol drinks as long as you agree to drive the rest of your party home. Many restaurants have such programs in place.

Interested restaurants that don’t have programs can contact traffic divisions of police departments in their areas assistance.

“We go into a restaurants in uniform and we have a meeting with the servers,” says Officer Tom Souza, who runs the Designated Driver program at LAPD Valley Division.

“We teach them how to promote ‘DD’ theory to the customer. In return, we ask that the restaurants provide an incentive for that person to be a designated driver, usually free non-alcoholic beverages.”

All police departments, Souza says, maintain lists of restaurants in their designated driver programs.

His list for the San Fernando Valley has 121 DD-friendly restaurants including Black Angus in Northridge, Reuben’s Summer House and the Red Onion in Woodland Hills and the Sportsmen’s Lodge and Stanley’s in Sherman Oaks.

On the other side of Mulholland, West Division, which encompasses the area bordered by Mulholland, Imperial Highway, Normandie Avenue and the Ocean, has logged 131 amenable establishments, including The Hard Rock Cafe, El Cholo, Citrus, Yamashiro, El Coyote, L.A. Farms, Versailles, The Hollywood Bowl, the Black Whale and Casa Escobar.

Few precincts, however, aggressively recruit participation from restaurants and, Souza says, police departments tend to focus on “large, family-style restaurants with more than a 20-server population.”

To get an idea of how the abstinent are treated at an arbitrarily selected handful of L.A.’s more intimate and happening watering holes, we’ve asked for the prices of non-alcohol beverages and whether they have designated driver programs.

The results:

- Small’s. Soft drinks, orange juice and mineral water are all $1.50. No designated driver program.

- Hollywood Athletic Club. Soft drinks $1.50; OJ $2; mineral water $2.50 and $2.75. Free non-alcohol beverages for designated drivers in parties of four or more.

- The Dresden Room. Soft drinks, orange juice and mineral water all $3. No program.

- Roxbury. Soft drinks and OJ $3. Mineral water $4. No designated driver program. (“We’ll call a taxi.”)

- Olive. Soft drinks $2.; OJ $2.75; mineral water $2.25 to $5. No program.

- St. James’ Club. Soft drinks $2; OJ $2.75; mineral water $3.50 and $3.75. No program.

For the list of participating Valley restaurants call LAPD Valley Division at (818) 902-0336. West Traffic’s number is (310) 202-4550.

For lists of establishments in other areas of Southern California, call local precincts.