Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Friday, May 16, 2008

Coalition discusses strategies to reduce risky drinking

By KJ LANG / La Crosse Tribune

After seven months of meetings, a coalition looking at risky drinking behavior in the area began the process of putting all the pieces together into a plan.

The group took the statistics, strategies and suggestions on what has worked so far from past meetings and boiled it down into a list on how to change the drinking culture in La Crosse County among 12 to 24 year olds.

Coalition members also discussed how — and how soon — to carry out these strategies.

The strategies were organized into three main categories: policy changes; best practices at festivities, schools and organizations; and education and mass media campaigns.

The coalition also discussed a timetable for extending policies now used in La Crosse — such as beer keg registration and the public intoxication ordinance — to the entire county.

The public intoxication ordinance, for example, has an option for the offender to take an alcohol awareness class instead of paying a fine. La Crosse police Officer Alan Iverson said that has worked well in the city and should be adopted throughout the county.

All of the policies, however, should be strengthened in La Crosse before being shared with surrounding municipalities and eventually La Crosse County. The goal would be to have policies ready for the county board to consider within three to five years, said Catherine Kolkmeier, director of the La Crosse Medical Health Science Consortium.

An example of an ordinance that could be stronger is La Crosse’s regulations regarding servers consuming alcohol while working, said Iverson. The current ordinances have a loophole, he said, that allows someone to purchase a drink for a server on break — that server simply moves to the other side of the bar.

The coalition will continue discussing strategies and timelines at its next meeting June 12, at a location still to be decided. Coalition meetings will continue through the summer, though they might skip July, said Kolkmeier.

Participation has dwindled since the meetings began, with only about 20 people attending Thursday.

The coalition will need to recruit more members for future meetings when they begin deciding how to put the strategies into practice, said Kolkmeier.

KJ Lang can be reached at (608) 791-8226 or klang@lacrossetribune.com.