Sparks To Be Taken Off Market

Nooooooooo! MillerCoors (their U.S. operations are combined) has announced it will stop selling Sparks and other alcoholic energy drinks. The company had been sued earlier this year by the Center for Science in the Public Interest in an attempt to get Sparks off the market.

Cue the victorious quotes!

“Attorneys general from around the country are gravely concerned about premixed alcoholic energy drinks because these products are dangerous and look and taste like popular nonalcoholic energy drinks,” said Maine Attorney General Steve Rowe. “They’re popular with young people who wrongly believe that the caffeine will counteract the intoxicating effects of the alcohol.” [...]

“Now that Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors have each agreed separately to discontinue caffeinated alcoholic drinks, this entire niche of products is all but shut down,” [the director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest] said.

Nobody, of course, can mix alcohol and caffeine themselves; one needs a chemistry degree for that.

It actually gets worse. Sparks isn’t technically going off the market altogether; MillerCoors will “continue to sell a reformulated version of Sparks that does not include caffeine, taurine, guarana and ginseng.” That means it’s all the disgusting taste of Sparks without any of the kick. Goodbye (real) Sparks, we hardly knew ye.

MillerCoors Agrees to Stop Selling Alcoholic Energy Drinks [Join Together]
Image by Justin used under a Creative Commons license

We Want The Lion To Take A Taxi

“The Penn State senior who plays the Nittany Lion mascot was arrested on a DUI charge and his status for the Rose Bowl is in doubt, police and school officials said.” The Associated Press also notes the Nittany Lion must maintain a 3.0 GPA in order to keep his job. Maybe the kid got it confused with BAC? [AP/Philly.com]

NJ College Pres. Hates His Students

Earlier this year, a bunch of college presidents got together to form the Amethyst Initiative, which asked for a dialogue on our de facto national drinking age.

It turns out — and I know this is going to shock you — that lots of kids on college campuses drink. I know, I’m surprised too. Don’t these kids know the law? Anyway: College campuses have developed a dangerous drinking culture, perhaps in part due to the 21-plus drinking age, and these college presidents were all wondering if the federal government could reconsider its policy.

The reaction to this from nearly all political and media quarters was that of horror. The New Jersey Senate held a hearing yesterday and decided the solution is just a little more law enforcement. “We’ve got to tighten these laws up to deal with this unfortunate problem,” said said the committee chairwoman.

But a special award goes to Stockton College president Glenn Miller, who requested the police arrest his students more often:

There is currently no law forbidding underage drinking, said Miller. Instead, under state statute, underage drinking outdoors is against the law, but underage alcohol consumption behind closed doors is not illegal.

“I think we should refine the statute to make it an actual violation to drink underage,” said Miller, who also called for harsher punishments for those who buy alcohol for underage adults.

“We are dealing with a population of young adults aged 18 to 22 and they are learning, most for the first time, how to live as a responsible member of the community. Students will make mistakes — however, when a community member does not learn from their mistake or refuses to accept the mistake they have made, enforcement needs to be taken.”

Let’s say you’re a 19-year-old at Stockton College, and you drink on the weekends like everybody else at school. You’re breaking the law, sure, but you don’t throw up like when you were 16 and you don’t get really hammered much anymore. You’ve somehow managed to become a responsible drinker. There is nothing you need more than enforcement.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is this: Yesterday, a Moorestown policeman pled not guilty to charges of having sex with girls and cows. While this was going on, the Senate was debating how to best fail at the impossible task of preventing all underage drinking.

Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. Or, I guess, fiddling while someone is diddling cows? Something like that.

Photo by cytoon used under a Creative Commons license

Bar Closed In N. Wildwood For (Gasp!) Serving A 20-Year-Old

The Daily News reports today that Keenan’s, beloved North Wildwood Irish pub, will be closed for Irish Weekend. Keenan’s? Closed for Irish Weekend? Be still my Irish heart!

The annual festival, which begins today, brings thousands to the five-mile island to do many things celebrating Irish heritage, like drinking, getting drunk and listening to Timmy Kelly (pictured) while consuming alcohol. (There are events that are about Irish heritage and non-alcoholic fun — and there’s probably a Mass, too — but I’ve never known anyone who attended them. Maybe I only know drunks.)

Keenan’s big sin was (get ready for this) serving alcohol to both a 20-year-old and an 18-year-old. Since every bar everywhere ever in the history of mankind has served underage patrons, the usual maxim with selectively-enforced laws applies: Somebody at Keenan’s pissed the wrong person off.

Keenan says the bar is constantly fighting a battle against fake IDs. He believes that his family is being punished for flaws in New Jersey’s and Pennsylvania’s licensing systems. “That hand we’ve been dealt isn’t 100 percent accurate. Yeah, we served minors. But we confiscated 175 fake IDs from Memorial Day to Labor Day,” said Keenan, 35.

“The bottom line is we have four separate violations, with a total of six underage drinkers in 10 years. Every one of them had a Pennsylvania valid ID with no dupes.”

Hey, only six underage drinkers (in a bar that takes up a whole block) in 10 years! That’s quite a record. Now that the bar is closed for Irish Weekend, no one under the age of 21 will ever drink in New Jersey again. You can lay off now, Richard Codey!

N. Wildwood’s Keenan’s shut for Irish Weekend [Daily News]
Photo by Irish Philadelphia, Creative Commons License

Out-Of-State Winies, The LCB, And God

In the beginning, God created man and the ethyl alcohol molecule. Later, man discovered the ethyl alcohol molecule was psychoactive. In other words, he discovered how to get drunk.

Alcohol is officially endorsed by both God and Jesus, and as such it’s one of the most popular drugs in the world. But even though God and Jesus both love alcohol, some people thought it shouldn’t exist. So the U.S. banned alcohol and everything was fine except for the flagrant violation of the alcohol laws and the gang wars and the deaths from contaminated alcohol and (most importantly) the loss of tax revenue. America got rid of Prohibition and Pennsylvania founded the Liquor Control Board.

Officially, Pennsylvania hoped for the return of Prohibition, if only to shut down the saloons in Philadelphia (see, in some ways this Prohibition wasn’t about alcohol at all!). But soon the state did discover the value of the tax revenue of drunks, and now it restricts the sale of “wine and spirits” to state-owned stores that usually suck.

The most-famous alcohol tax in Pennsylvania is the Johnstown Flood Tax, originally levied at 10 percent to help the Western Pa. town recover from a 1936 flood. Now the money goes to the general fund. As you might have guessed, the rate is now 18 percent, having been raised for reasons not related to flooding in Johnstown.

Yes, the state loves alcohol revenue. It gets better: The state once banned out-of-state wineries from shipping directly to consumers in Pennsylvania, because that makes sense. But a bunch of court rulings eventually made that law unconstitutional, so now somehow the state is going to make a new law that will do the same thing and (I guess, you never know) be constitutional.

All of this is being done to “protect the children,” because allowing wineries to ship alcohol to Pennsylvania residents would make it easier for kids to get booze. They, apparently, do not have access to it now.

For more information, consult your local anti-Pennsylvania LCB bloq.

Pa. Lawmakers May Restrict Wine Shipments [AP/NBC 10]
Photo by RobotSkirts, Creative Commons license

N.J. Liquor Store Sales In Supermarkets?

Although advanced robots will tentatively soon sell wine in Pennsylvania grocery stores, New Jersey still has us beat in the alcohol game. Not only is 190-proof Everclear — “The choice of collegiate binge drinkers everywhere!” — legal in Jersey, but a Senate committee has voted to legalize liquor sales in supermarkets.

Easier access to liquor in N.J. is clearly a good thing for its residents. After all, how else would they survive Lou Dobbs’ possible run for governor? Oh, man, I think even in Pennsylvania we’ll need some Everclear for that. Over the Ben Franklin Bridge we go!

Buying liquor in N.J. groceries may be on tap [Courier-Post]
CNN’s Lou Dobbs won’t comment on run for N.J. governor [AP/Courier-Post]

NBC 10 Eliminates Town’s Fire Co.

Way back in 2004, NBC 10 (”The Investigators!”) broadcast a report alleging that firefighters in Colwyn, Delaware County, were operating an illegal bar, and the mayor and others were going there. Colwyn is a dry town, and Lu Ann Cahn actually said this, “Are you all above the law?” OMG IRL drama.

Then for some reason earlier this month all of Colwyn’s firefighers resigned at once. Cops also raided the “speakeasy” and killed seven members of the Hogan gang, as well as confiscating illegal video poker machines and alcohol.

Then last night the town council ended its relationship with the fire company. The head of the Colwyn Fire Co. was dramatic: “God, heaven forbid, someone gets hurt or really killed. Then it’s really going to hit the fan.” And this is also pretty much the best government plan ever:

Colwyn borough officials said the borough would have fire protection from surrounding Darby and Collingdale until they can re-open a fire company with a core of volunteer firefighters who didn’t go to the firehouse bar.

So thanks to your local media, residents of Colwyn, Pa., you no longer have a fire company. Be sure to thank NBC 10 for the service.

Could Beer Be Easier To Buy?

KYW 1060 reports on the latest case the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is hearing: The Sheetz convenience store chain wants to be able to sell beer at its locations.

John Rafferty (R-Chester, Montgomery Counties) is chairman of the Senate Law and Justice Committee, which oversees liquor issues. He thinks the court will rule in favor relaxing beer sales: “I have a feeling that – and this is strictly a gut feeling – that the court is going to open the windows for us, and that there will be a more liberal ruling, if you will, widening the market for selling beer.”

Making beer easier to get? Who knew Pennsylvania could even do that? Hopefully the court will rule with that “gut feeling” clause in the state constitution.

High Court Ruling Could Make Selling Beer in Pa. Easier [KYW 1060]

Airport Actually #1 In Something

DRAFT Magazine — a magazine, apparently — recently ranked the top 10 airports for beer, and what do you know, Philadelphia International Airport ranked first, having 48 taps at several terminals.

Thanks to Jet Rock, Philly features the rare jewel of a big-selection airport bar in not one, but four terminals. The rock ‘n’ roll-themed restaurants in terminals B, C, and D pull 48 taps (24 in F) with a mix of local micros and big-brewery lagers.

The idea of a rock ‘n’ roll-themed restaurant sounds pretty terrible — ever been to Hard Rock? — but with 48 taps, there’s certain to be a beer you’ll like. It makes sense, though: Only a lot of beer could make PHL palatable.

PHL tops in hops [Food & Drinq]

Johnny Doc Supports Football

BradyDale noted the above poster on YoungPhillyPolitics that Johnny Doc apparently had around the Super Bowl.

John Dougherty is against drinking and driving. And he supports the Super Bowl! Where do you stand?