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can just picture the scene. A concerned parent is out strolling with his/her offspring(s) through the park when, suddenly, a besotted pervert leaps out of the bushes and ... starts mixing a cocktail right in front of them. Oh, the horror! Well, Utah state legislators are pushing to be sure that never happens without a legal penalty being attached. They're actually trying to restrict restaurants from making mixed drinks in full view of minors. Senate president Michael Waddoups says proposed legislation is necessary to protect the "safety and mental future of our children." If he and any like-minded colleagues have...

Maine voters in November will consider a ballot question seeking to overturn a newly-minted state law that changes the funding method for the Dirigo Health Program.

Bars and restaurants around Wrigley Field that ignore the city’s call to voluntarily cut off liquor sales after the seventh inning could face a dire alternative: Area residents could vote them dry, Mayor Daley warned Tuesday. One day after bar owners reacted angrily to the city’s proposal, Daley defended it as "common sense." He argued that Cubs fans who’ve been drinking up until the seventh-inning stretch of potential title-clinching games need, what he called, "some smoothing time" before the celebration begins in earnest. » Click to enlarge image Fans celebrate after the Cubs won the Central Division title. Mayor Daley...

Since Hurricane Ike struck — pitching much of the city into darkness — Houston police have made about 280 arrests every day. Most were for nonviolent offenses, including 388 for public intoxication and 335 for drug possession, police said. The totals actually show a decrease from pre-Ike levels, when Houston police were arresting about 370 people daily, according to department officials. "A lot of the credit goes to the visibility of the officers. We're trying to deter as much crime as we possibly can," said HPD spokesman John Cannon. Arrests for looting have dwindled. Of the 168 arrests made since...

Life is full of surprises, and some 100 college presidents think they have stumbled on one. They think there is too much problem drinking on campus -- no surprise there -- and suggest we might solve the problem by changing the drinking age. They don't propose to raise it to 25. They want to lower it to 18. The group behind the petition they signed, Choose Responsibility, says the current drinking age is a failure. It has "not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students," the statement says, and in fact has spawned "a culture of dangerous, clandestine...

Heather Squires was the designated driver. Never exactly a fun thing, but a college buddy of her husband's was driving up from Tucson to celebrate his acceptance into law school. So when her husband, Jason, asked, Heather said yes. It's not safe to be the designated driver these days, either. At Chuy's in Tempe, Heather's brother and her husband and the soon-to-be-law-school student knocked off four pitchers of beer. Everybody was having a great time. Around 9:30 p.m., they decided to head home. So they piled into Jason Squires' new pickup truck. As planned, Heather drove. They didn't get very...

LONDON, May 31 -- Pete Duffell stood on the subway platform late Saturday, swigging a cold beer and ready to party. Duffell, 24, a professional scuba diver from Kent, and two buddies -- one with his hair dyed green for the occasion -- hauled three plastic bags filled with beer and wine onto a Circle Line subway train. At midnight Saturday, drinking on London's Tube would suddenly be banned for the first time in the storied history of the world's oldest underground train system. Duffell and thousands of others, many wearing tuxedos, Mexican sombreros and Darth Vader masks, decided to...

US winemakers seek to reduce alcohol content By Tom Leonard, in New York Last Updated: 2:47am GMT 11/01/2008 Winemakers in California are attempting to reduce the alcohol level in their notoriously powerful reds and whites. Californian "monster" wines regularly contain 15% vol alcohol and some are as high as 17%, alarming some of their own producers despite the praise of critics. The winemakers have responded by picking grapes earlier and employing other tactics designed to produce the more "balanced", lower alcohol wines that are popular in Europe. They say the move has in part been prompted by demand from American...

The frustration of proving one's age to buy things like alcohol and tobacco does not end when you reach the appropriate legal age. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have a youthful appearance are forever burdened with having to carry a state-issued ID card to every place where we might want to buy alcohol or tobacco. Over the past few years, we've been gradually subjected to another, more intrusive ID-related hassle -- that of electronic drivers license scanning. It's one thing when a government representative scans your driver's license; it's another thing entirely when a restaurant does it,...

Another new year, another list of new laws affecting California motorists. This year's batch includes restrictions on cell phone use, a law making it easier for vehicle owners to replace lost keys, and a prohibition of smoking in vehicles that contain minors. Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Anaheim, voted against two bills that will go into effect this year. "It starts to cross over to a nanny state when law enforcement officials are trying to regulate every aspect of everyone's lives," Spitzer said of the smoking ban. Similarly, Spitzer voted against the cell phone restriction, which will require motorists to use hands-free...

Besieged by criticism of the new 10 percent tax on alcoholic drinks, Allegheny County Council members have seen the relationship between Democrats and Republicans take a decidedly acrimonious turn. Representatives of both parties have vowed to try to set aside political differences to undo the damage done by the tax debate and the accusations it generated. The tax, which goes into effect next month, was approved in a 10-4 vote Tuesday. Nine of the 10 votes in favor came from Democrats.

Anti-drinking ads which show stupid drunk behaviour inadvertently glamorise Medical Studies/Trials Published: Monday, 10-Dec-2007 . .   Advertising campaigns in Britain meant to discourage young people from drinking to excess have come in for some harsh criticism from researchers and comes at a time when experts are saying alcohol abuse is a widespread problem among the young. The researchers say adverts which focus on the idiotic behaviour carried out when people are drunk may be "catastrophically misconceived" and may backfire by inadvertently glamorising the habit. In a study, led by a research team at the University of Bath, researchers...

Citing and hailing the latest production of epidemiological junk science … Here comes the first solid prelude to the "denormalization" of alcohol -- the third and final phase of "public health’s" sick-minded social engineering. Of course alcohol causes cancer! They “proved it” with the same methods used to “prove” the carcinogenicity of smoking: a) multifactorial epidemiological junk science; b) finding molecules that, administered in millions of times greater quantities, may cause cancer in mice. What else is new? All of you non-smokers who were so happy about “smoke-free” pubs and bars and restaurants, enjoy: it is your turn. The gipsy...

TAMPA - Had a few drinks before getting behind the wheel? Think again. That harmless-looking minivan in the rearview mirror might be the neighbors on patrol. That's how Mothers Against Drunk Driving pitched its latest plan to get impaired drivers off the roads. Called the Traffic Observation Program, the pilot program is slated to begin in Hillsborough County and may become a statewide initiative, according to Don Murray, Florida's executive director for MADD. The plan: Recruit 20 volunteers armed with donated cell phones and send them out in the middle of the night to watch for telltale signs of drunk...

FORT WORTH – The Sierra Vista housing development has long been awaited on the city's southeast side, putting the area plagued by drugs, crime and alcoholism on the verge of rebirth. But supporters of revitalization for the area are worried that a proliferation of liquor stores and convenience stores selling alcohol nearby could mar the development and stymie the economic opportunities it is expected to bring. The latest liquor store is planned for Yuma and East Berry streets – the gateway to Sierra Vista.

New Jersey appellate court decision upholds a DUI for a man sleeping in a parked truck under the influence. New Jersey Superior Court logoA New Jersey appellate court yesterday upheld the principle that convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) can be imposed on individuals who were not driving. David Montalvo, 36, found this out as he responsibly tried to sleep off his intoxication in his GMC pickup truck while safely stopped in the parking lot of the Market Place Deli on a cold February morning last year. At around 5am he awoke to see a Hamburg Police...

LONDON (AP) — Last call at a British pub can be like a contact sport, with a crush of drunken customers suddenly heaving toward the bar in search of one last round. It's a hallowed British tradition, and doctors say an increasingly dangerous one. Britain's taste for binge drinking, driven by a pub culture in which a good night out means packing in as many pints as possible before the traditional 11 p.m. closing time, could lead to a liver-disease epidemic within two decades unless Britons learn to drink more responsibly, authorities warned. "There's been a frightening increase in alcoholic...

NEW YORK, Aug 7 - Most binge drinkers will reach for beer rather than wine or liquor when they set out to get drunk, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. The study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined the drinking habits of 14,000 adult binge drinkers across 18 U.S. states. What they found is that 67 percent of these drinkers drank only or mainly beer in their most recent binge, with easy access to beer seen as a major reason. The researchers defined a binge drinker as someone drinking more than five drinks at one sitting. "Beer...

In the state's continuing war against the consumption of alcohol, North Carolina Governor Mike Easley signed a new law on Monday that will not only make it harder to buy kegs of beer, but will also diminish the legal rights of defendants to challenge illegally or incorrectly obtained evidence by the state in regards to driving under the influence charges. The new law also makes it a crime to have any alcohol in the system of anyone under 21 years of age and allows police officers to demand a chemical test of citizens under 21, whether or not they are...

MINEOLA, N.Y. -- A district attorney elected last fall on a promise to limit plea bargains is being sued by a defense attorney who claims the prosecutor's new policies on DWI cases are unconstitutional. Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said she is not backing away from the changes, which include the creation of a separate courtroom for DWI cases. She also wants permanent criminal records for first-time offenders convicted of having a blood-alcohol level of 0.13 percent or more. The legal limit in the state is 0.08 percent. Rice has also stiffened her office's approach to plea deals, insisting...