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| Sandra Wood |
Secondly, let’s ignore for the moment that in making compliance conditional, Reagan is indulging in a distasteful shakedown, to say nothing of his infringing states’ rights. What remains obvious to anyone with a gram of intelligence is that the law will not work; just as it didn’t work during Prohibition when the President—a whisky loving Republican—told everyone to stay off the stuff.
Across my desk the other day comes from the public relations counsel for TGI Friday’s one of the most patronizing press releases I have ever read. It is all about how Friday’s is supporting the drinking age legislation. In it are quotes attributed to Friday’s president, Daniel R. Scoggin, which, for the life of me, I cannot believe an executive of a major restaurant chain would utter (I can believe, however, that a self-serving p.r. firm, sucking up to its client, would convince him to). Did he not review his speech before uttering it or any part of it?
Here, according to the press release, is some of Scoggin, as brain-numbing as some of the drinks his restaurants serve: “Seventeen and 18-year-olds lack the maturity required for drinking alcoholic beverages in a public establishment [but, at home, OK?], particularly where drink specials [the kinds Friday’s are known for?] encourage the consumption of large amounts of alcohol quickly [OK for anyone over the age of 21?]”
Someone ought to remind Scoggin or his speech writers that blanket judgments like that not only smack of hypocrisy, given the bottom-line bucks Friday’s banks from the sale of booze, but are pointless gobbledygook. Here’s some more Scoggin, this, especially noxious: “Though much of the restaurant industry opposes a minimum drinking age of 21, we have supported it since the mid-1970’s. Long before drunk driving became a prominent national issue, Friday’s refused to admit people under 21 to its restaurants after 8 p.m., if unaccompanied by a parent or guardian [before 8 a.m., during Happy Hour, if you’re under 21, it’s OK, unaccompanied or not?]. Restaurants are part of the communities they serve. A minimum drinking age of 21 will help ensure that restaurant customers enjoy themselves safely.” I’m not at all sure what that last sentence means.
Friday’s p.r. or Scoggin himself ought to put a bullet through that bullshit.
Firstly, who is Scoggin to imply that the entire restaurant industry is irresponsible (“though much of the . . . industry opposes . . .”)? Secondly, there’s that worrisome qualifier: “Friday’s refused to admit people under 21 to its restaurant after 8 p.m. . . .” That begs the question, doesn’t it (see above)? But, does it matter? The argument is specious, a stomach-turning example of smarmy prose.
Friday’s motive? To prove to everyone, especially lawmakers everywhere, that it was concerned (morally and ethically?) about its responsibilities to the community specifically and foodservice generally; and how, with this p.r. gambit, it went on record as acting responsibly, just in case it should be slapped with third-party liability lawsuits. To make sure all of the wise and influential folk on The Hill and in the Cabinet got the message, a letter from Scoggin endorsing the law went to several legislators and—holy relevancy—Elizabeth Dole, Secretary of Transportation. I’m surprised Scoggin didn’t copy the Pope.
Now, because Friday’s brought up the matter of maturity and how it believes 18- to 20-year-olds shouldn’t be part of the discussion, I thought you might be interested in learning how a nation of responsible adults (most over 21) behaved during Prohibition. I’m indebted to the kind folk over at The New Yorker for the following:
“Prohibition witnessed an unprecedented attempt by the Federal government to enforce a police regulation demanding that 122 million people accustomed to drinking more than two billion gallons of alcoholic refreshments yearly now pursue total abstinence. When Prohibition began, many people believed the public would accept it. Who would risk a $1,000 fine or six-month jail term just for a drink?
“Because of the Prohibition issue, liquor was on everyone’s mind. People were curious. Drinking was more attractive now that it was illegal. The police in almost every precinct in every city were corruptible . . .
“During this ‘dry’ era, 21,000 speakeasies replaced the 15,000 legal drinking places of pre-Prohibition New York . . .
And so it went: the mature acts of citizens (gangsters and drinkers), most of whom were a lot older than 18. What’s the point? To show how foolishly people behave—no matter how old they are—when you remove alcohol from their diet; and to convince those of you who may agree with Friday’s that it’s not only teenagers who act recklessly when they drink, so do many of the rest of us—before or after 8 p.m. What’s more, if Scoggin and/or his p.r. counsel had taken the time to study carefully national statistics regarding drunk driving, they would have uncovered the sobering fact that most drunk drivers are adults (or those of us who pass for adults), over the age of 21.
Who is and who isn’t old enough to drink? That’s really the issue, isn’t it? Reagan would have you believe that if you’re 18, 19, or 20, you aren’t. Yet, from the other side of his mouth, he tells you that at age 18 (stop me, if you’ve heard this one) you are old enough to fight for your country and to vote. What legislators should address is not the Drinking Issue, but the Age Issue. If you are old enough to defend your country and to vote, then you are old enough to drink and, in the drinking (if you drink too much) to get drunk just like everyone else over the age of 21. What I’d suggest to lawmakers is that they raise the age of majority for everything to 21 . . . or drop it to 18.
That would solve everything, wouldn’t it? Sorry.
You can vote at 18, but I don’t see any evidence that kids under 18 have lied about their age in order to vote or to fight for their country. The incidents of kids lying about their age to join the Marines were the romance and dreams of teenagers generations ago, the stuff of B-movies.
Long before Reagan signed the minimum drinking-age bill, underage kids everywhere were swilling everything from 3.2 beer to hair tonic. You think they’re going to stop because our president tells them to? He should know you can’t legislate a drinking age just as you can’t a moral code. You can set a drinking age, but you cannot legislate and enforce it. Forget that underage kids will falsify ID’s ’til Kingdom come, when you place alcoholic beverages out of the reach of those who found it heretofore within reach, you’re inviting consequences the likes of which this country hasn’t seen since Prohibition (see above).
Question: How many of you believe that 18- to 20-year-olds won’t drink because the law says they can’t? Next question: How many of you believe that 18- to 20-year-olds who have never tried the stuff (and, conceivably, might never ever) won’t because the law says they can’t? NB, Prohibition, The New Yorker: “Drinking was more attractive now that it was illegal.”
Just like some adults I know, kids are notorious for their ingenious rebellion against authority, especially when they find it questionable and distasteful. They are also very clever about ways to circumvent it. I’ve friends whose children, still shy of puberty, smoke. Kids in high school space out on pot; yet I don’t see legislation written in Washington to crack down on addicts. I don’t even see too much hand-wringing. The Surgeon General and most doctors caution that cigarettes can kill you, but—because of the strength of the tobacco lobby—Washington does nothing.
Nope. Lawmakers telling us who can and cannot drink is irresponsible. It creates an environment where the temptation to drink coupled with the temptation to break the law (kind of like speeding with a radar detector clipped to the dashboard) become ends in themselves.
The minimum drinking-age law, as passed and signed into law, is a bad one and ought to be amended or repealed.
And, while I wait for that to happen, I speculate about other pieces of sensibly similar legislation to come bubbling out of the cauldrons of Congress, such as bills telling us to eat our spinach, keep our elbows off the table, don’t talk with our mouths full, and to floss and brush after every meal. I can’t wait.
Friday's: oneinchpunch/Shutterstock.com
