Glass half empty? Industry could bear brunt of New Mexico's alcohol-service training rules

True or false: Alcohol is just as dangerous as heroin for pregnant women? That's false, of course. But according to a recently imposed server training curriculum in New Mexico, it's false because alcohol is more dangerous than heroin.

New Mexico's liquor commissioner recently swept aside existing server training programs and ruled that only a newly created state program can be used. TIPS, BarCode, ServSafe and the rest of the industry's widely used programs have been disqualified unless they use the state government's curriculum in place of their own. In sum: Every waiter and waitress--as well as bartender and liquor store clerk--in the state will be indoctrinated with the alcohol-is-worse-than-heroin message.

Welcome to the new world of server training.

A dedicated core of neo-prohibitionists has determined that schooling your servers in anti-alcohol propaganda is one of the best ways to achieve their goal of reducing overall consumption. They have designed curricula intended to scare servers not only about the dangers of alcohol but also about their personal liability if they overserve.

What the neo-prohibitionists consider "overserving" can boggle the mind. One program in California teaches servers to limit their customers to one drink an hour and cut them off after two drinks.

Server training programs created and promoted by neo-prohibitionists are about serving less alcohol, not teaching responsible practices. They want to reduce your sales of adult beverages--waiter by waiter, customer by customer. It used to be an irritating anomaly to have your waiter ask, "Are you sure you want that second glass of wine?" Neo-prohibitionists want to make it the norm.

Who is behind that disturbing trend in server training? It is not surprising that it's the $8 billion Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, or RJWF. That command and control center for the anti-alcohol movement has spent more than $265 million to limit sales of adult beverages. It is now leading the campaign for server training with a neo-prohibitionist flavor.

One RWJF-funded researcher put the agenda plainly when he said "the bottom line" of a server training program should be that it changes customer behavior by "promoting nonalcoholic beverages."

A complex web of connections exists between RWJF and anti-alcohol server training programs. New Mexico's curriculum was created by an organization whose longtime director reviews and receives RWJF grants and sits on the advisory committees of two RWJF organizations. His organization also supervises a group that led the charge for New Mexico's "dime a drink" tax.

The aforementioned program in California also has RWJF connections. It was approved by the only certifying body for server training in the state--a body that happens to be populated by dedicated neo-prohibitionists. Two of its board members work with RWJF's "Fighting Back" program, which aims for a "reduction in the overall use of or demand for alcohol."

The RWJF-funded Facing Alcohol Concerns through Education, or FACE--most famous for creating the "beer bottle syringe" ad campaign that equates beer with heroin and other illegal drugs--has moved into server training as well. FACE's training coordinator, the recipient of a $25,000 RWJF Award, once told industry representatives that the group's obvious bias wouldn't affect its server training program. Right.

Another clever strategy employed by anti-alcohol activists is trying to replace existing hospitality-industry programs by offering their own versions for free.

RWJF-funded researchers at the University of Nebraska have created their own program, which is being offered free of charge by other RWJF affiliates in several states.

Right now the state of Missouri is offering the program for free to retailers in 20 cities. After one paper reported that state officials want to make the program mandatory, industry leaders intervened. It now looks as if we dodged that bullet. But there will be more to come.

Over the last two decades, the restaurant industry has led the way with extensive--and expensive--server training programs. Those efforts deserve a great deal of credit for the dramatic reductions in drunk driving and underage drinking we have seen in that time period. Teenage drunk-driving fatalities are down 61 percent, and drinking among high-school seniors has dropped 32 percent.

These days the majority of underage drinkers obtain alcohol from family and friends. According to a Century Council survey, only 7 percent say they get alcohol from retailers who don't check their identification. Even the infamously anti-alcohol National Academy of Sciences report of 2003 acknowledged that underage drinkers consistently rate on-premises establishments as one of the least likely places to obtain adult beverages.

All of that seems to have eluded RWJF and its anti-alcohol allies. Their problem with the excellent industry-run server training programs, it seems, is that they're not anti-alcohol enough.

Just as restaurant industry members can't afford to let anti-alcohol zealots train our wait staff, we shouldn't allow our sincere and successful server training programs to go unnoticed. Promoting those programs will require outreach to state and local officials as well as the public as a whole.

To help publicize industry efforts and prevent their erosion by neo-prohibitionists, the American Beverage Institute has created the ABI Server Training Certification initiative. ABI doesn't run any server training programs, but it helps restaurants evaluate their curriculum.

ABI-certified programs teach responsible service as well as ways to prevent alcohol abuse, drunk driving and service to minors.

They also teach the simple yet increasingly unstated lesson that adult beverages are enjoyed responsibly by millions of Americans. ABI programs celebrate, rather than discourage, responsible consumption.

John Doyle is executive director of the American Beverage Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based association of restaurants committed to the responsible serving of adult beverages. To learn more, visit www.ABIonline.org.

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