Posted on 11/17/2008 7:02:01 PM PST by Eric Blair 2084
When a 15-year-old comes into Wile-e’s bar looking for a cold beer, the bartender, Mike Whaley, is happy to serve it up — as long as a parent is there to give permission.
“If they’re 15, 16, 17, it’s fine if they want to sit down and have a few beers,” said Mr. Whaley, who owns the tavern in this small town in southern Wisconsin.
While it might raise some eyebrows in most of America, it is perfectly legal in Wisconsin. Minors can drink alcohol in a bar or restaurant in Wisconsin if they are accompanied by a parent or legal guardian who gives consent. While there is no state law setting a minimum age, bartenders can use their discretion in deciding whom to serve.
When it comes to drinking, it seems, no state keeps pace with Wisconsin. This state, long famous for its breweries, has led the nation in binge drinking in every year since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began its surveys on the problem more than a decade ago. Binge drinking is defined as five drinks in a sitting for a man, four for a woman.
People in Wisconsin are more likely than anywhere else to drive drunk, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The state has among the highest incidence of drunken driving deaths in the United States.
Now some Wisconsin health officials and civic leaders are calling for the state to sober up. A coalition called All-Wisconsin Alcohol Risk Education started a campaign last week to push for tougher drunken driving laws, an increase in screening for alcohol abuse at health clinics and a greater awareness of drinking problems generally.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I have that opinion also, which should also not surprise you.
Well you got the lacked discipline part right. Kudos. It actually comes from a South Park episode. Yes, yes I know it’s just a cartoon and not to be taken as the Gospel, but it was pretty funny. You don’t have to watch the whole thing, just watch the first 2 minutes. Don’t watch the rest, you’ll be offended and blame me.
http://www.southparkzone.com/episodes/914/Bloody-Mary.html
You’re shooting at the wrong target, sparky. I’m not any happier than you are about the goofy standards for DUI in many states. But I can assure you, when my brother came inches from pulping his brain on a telephone pole, he was DRUNK. When the people my Dad and my uncle and their cop friends had to clean up off the highway had their accidents, either they or the person who hit them was quite DRUNK.
Go find some Nanny-Stater to educate. You’re barking up the wrong tree.
No further explanation needed.
Nobody likes to be plowed into by a jackass with an alcohol to blood content of .4 (not BAC but ABC). But the MADD social engineers take it way too far and have an agenda.
I got hit by a drunk driver myself. It was August 2, 1990, I remember the date because it was the same day that Saddam invaded Kuwait.
I was driving back from summer classes in my extended senior year of college (failed Econometrics and had to retake it, seemed that my computer model showing a GDP of 0 by 2008 was laughed at, but who is laughing now, but I digress) in my dad’s GM made Cadillac land yacht on the NJ Turnpike. I’m in the right lane minding my own business when out of nowhere I get sideswiped.
The guy doesn’t stop, he keeps going. I see him throw an entire case of beer out the window. My car is crippled and I drove 3 miles on the shoulder trying to catch up to him. Found him pulled over and thankfully there was a good samaritan who was a witness who flagged him down for the cops.
He was arrested. Turned out he was an off duty corrections officer. The “funny” thing was the statement he gave to the cops. I’ll never forget it. Quote “Me and my girlfriend were jerking around, she tried to grab the wheel from me and I tried to grab it back, and we swerved and hit the other car.”
Thanks. Sorry if I came across as a jerk. A friend just got hit with DUI after drinking two beers in 3 hours in North Carolina. Blew over .08 and that was the end of that.
Does your friend weigh 60 pounds? There is no way to have a BAC of .08 after 2 beers.
This stuff is not hard and fast. My parents forbid alcohol in the strongest terms, though they were not teetotalers. I’ll admit I drank underage but I was for the most part a very, very responsible drinker until I stopped completely in 1994.
I know parents who took that same approach, and their kids were major binge drinkers. That includes my brother, who nearly killed himself driving drunk. Yet I know families that handled it with supervised drinking and did well (minor league social drinkers) or did poorly...I have a high school friend who goes through wine like Bacchus.
The bottom line is it’s very unlikely that your niece’s parents caused her alcoholism, any more than my parents caused both binge drinking and teetotalling in their boys with the exact same approach to alcohol. Mainly I think it was the fact that my brothers and i ran with very different crowds.
Did you notice the Margaret Mead anthropology tone of the article, especially the part where they said that the beer drinking can’t be the result of German culture because German isn’t widely spoken in Wisconsin anymore? Yeah, I guess my wife’s whole family must secretly speak German, because they have German family traditions and all of them appear to only speak English.
Oh, if only they had a dry barracks option when I was in the Air Force.
Her problem is all George Bush’s fault. :-)
My husband's reaction to an alcoholic father and 5 alcoholic uncles that kept the entire family in turmoil was to never take a drink for fear he would end up sleeping in vomit like they did.
No one in my family ever drank very much because it gave us all terrible headaches.
No, he’s under 200 but not that far. I have no bloody idea how he blew it, but he did and I don’t think he was lying about the amount he drank.
Trust me...I’m as confused as you are.
Reminds me of why my Dad never took up smoking. Said he got to hear his Dad cough up a lung until about 10:30 every morning and decided it wasn't for him.
I'll be praying for your niece.
Thanks, we are all praying for her. she is a stunningly beautiful 30 year old with a college degree who has started and is running her own business. The rehab was her own idea because she knew the alcohol was going to ruin her life if she didn’t get a handle on it.
No, he wouldnt. You do realize that this article is about Wisconsin, not Illinois? I had drinks with my parents at bars since about 13 and no one thought anything of it.
Please explain
Generally same, same, and same.
As codercpc stated, theyre just quiet old places with a few regulars. Its an entirely different concept than what most of the rest of the country thinks of as a bar. Its more like your neighborhoods shared recroom.
I remember going with my parents to visit various family friends when we lived in Milwaukee. There were alot of these little places you mention with each one really only servicing an area of a couple of blocks. Most of the houses in these areas had a livingroom where the family watched TV but when guests came over things were often a bit cramped and boring because few if anyone had a family room or recroom so everyone would go across the street to that neighborhoods bar. In those days there were generally chubs and hocks and maybe stringcheese and brats or pizza available in these places. Single guys would often stop in to get something to eat on their way home rather than go fix something for themself and in the process discuss sports or current events with an old couple who was just tired of sitting home alone. There was room to move around, people eagerly waiting to serve you, games for visitors including the kids to play, and someone to clean up after you. It was a recreational place with servants that served beer, not the place where everyone went to just get smashed except for a regular or two at hours after the families and others went home.
Each of these places had some interesting characters who were regulars. One place, "down in the Polish slums", had a regular who wasnt even human. There was a Great Dane who used to show up at one place with money in his collar. The bartender would tap beer in a stainless bowl for him and he would spend the evening hanging out with the other regulars. I suspect the owner preferred him over the other regulars as he always payed up front, didnt pick fights, and never left the bathrooms a mess.
One of the things that nannystaters really have problems with is the part where minors can buy alchohol. These folks tend to imagine adolescents sitting at a bar unsupervised shooting tequila or something. The real reason is more so parents can use their children as personal wait staff and send them up to the bar instead of going themselves. At 6 or so I didnt mind working as waitstaff at all as I usually was allowed to return with an orange soda to drink out of my own pilsner glass!
It can also mean that a passenger had been drinking. It is utter nonsense.
as long as its not a stick shift, you should be ok :P
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