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Sunday, May 5, 2002
Liquor Sellers Not Held Accountable
By Thomas J. Cole
Journal Investigative Reporter
More than 210,000 drivers were arrested for DWI in New Mexico during the decade that ended on the last day of the year 2000.
During the same period, there were 46,203 alcohol-related crashes resulting in 2,267 people killed, and thousands more maimed.
But there were only 238 citations issued against liquor licensees for serving intoxicated people.
More than 100 of those resulted in no punishment for the sellers.
Santa Fe Police Chief John Denko calls the number of seller citations "astoundingly low."
"It's an indictment of complacency," says Steven Flint, a board member of the nonprofit DWI Resource Center in Albuquerque and a former chief of the state Traffic Safety Bureau.
Tougher enforcement of New Mexico's law against serving intoxicated people would save about 20 lives a year on the highways, according to a study produced for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
"That's the next place we need to go" in the DWI fight, says Nadine Milford, state chairwoman of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
The Special Investigations Division of the state Department of Public Safety has primary responsibility for enforcing liquor laws.
But the state has a long history of underfunding the division.
"The money of the alcohol industry speaks loud and clear," says Linda Atkinson, executive director of the DWI Resource Center. "Alcohol is the sacred cow of New Mexico.
"We will have a liquor licensee on every corner, be damned if you want a safe neighborhood," she says. "Our wild west mentality has unfortunately stayed."
Thomas English, a former federal prosecutor who became public safety secretary last year, says he is trying to crack down on bars and restaurants that serve intoxicated people.
"The efforts to this date haven't met up to that problem," English says.
Repeat DWI offenders were asked in a study for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration where they typically consumed alcohol.
Bars topped the list, followed by the offenders' homes, homes of friends and relatives, and restaurants.
To deny that DWI offenders get drunk in bars, "You have to be a liar," Denko says.
Of the 238 citations issued for serving intoxicated people from 1991 through 2000, at least 102 were dismissed, resulted in no recorded penalty or were settled with a warning.
For those who paid a fine, the average was $600. Only 42 citations resulted in license suspensions.
The state in 1995 began requiring that alcohol servers be trained in compliance with liquor laws and in 1999 began issuing citations to individual servers.
It is impossible to tell from the state Alcohol and Gaming Division database how many server citations have been issued for serving intoxicated people.
Bert Clemens, a hotel and restaurant owner in Eagle Nest and a former president of an association that represents bars and restaurants, says 99 percent of sellers do a good job in not serving intoxicated people.
"It's really hard to say when a guy is visibly intoxicated," Clemens says. "It can be impossible."
It is also hard for sellers to always know how much someone has had to drink because people bar hop and drink in vehicles, he says.
"You get thrown out of Joe's place so you go to Mabel's place," Clemens says. "Then it takes a drink to figure out this guy's blotto."
English says he has ordered the Special Investigations Division to start tracking down where drivers got drunk before causing accidents.
The division can then use the information to target liquor sellers for investigation, English says.
Maj. Fernando Gallegos, head of the Special Investigations Division, says the division has 21 agents to enforce alcohol laws statewide.
Cases against licensees for serving intoxicated people are hard to prove, Gallegos says.
Someone drinking in a bar or restaurant can't be forced to take a blood-alcohol test unless he gets into a vehicle, he says.
Agents have begun bringing cases against people who buy drinks for intoxicated friends and family members after they have been denied service in bars and restaurants, Gallegos says.
The Special Investigations Division recently received grant money from the state Traffic Safety Bureau to step up enforcement.