UNM STUDY SUGGESTS STATE NEEDS TO IMPROVE ENFORCEMENT AND TRAINING FOR ALCOHOL SERVERS TO LOWER DWI RATE

June 12, 2003

UNM STUDY SUGGESTS STATE NEEDS TO IMPROVE ENFORCEMENT AND TRAINING FOR ALCOHOL SERVERS TO LOWER DWI RATE

Preliminary results of a study regarding the effectiveness of the State of New Mexico’s mandatory alcohol server education program will be unveiled Wednesday, June 18 at the Albuquerque Marriott on Louisiana at 4 p.m. The event will be sponsored by the DWI Resource Center and the Behavioral Health Research Center of the Southwest.

The study was conducted from 1996-1999 by UNM’s Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addictions (CASAA) with the Pacific Research Center in Berkeley, Calif., acting as a principal investigator. Denise Wheeler, senior research scientist and project coordinator for the evaluation, will present findings and recommendations from the study.

Wheeler, associate director for CASAA’s Prevention, Education and Research Branch, spent many hours in bars throughout the state interviewing waiters, waitresses and managers, as well as shadowing law enforcement officers.

“I don’t think people realize that approximately 50 percent of those who are caught driving drunk got their last drink at an on-site premise, namely a bar, lounge, restaurant or nightclub,” Wheeler said. “It’s generally not people who are sitting at home drinking who get stopped for DWI, but people who are ‘over-served’ at public establishments.”

New Mexico mandated server training in 1993, with the intent of reducing the number of persons who drive while intoxicated — one of a handful of states to do so. However, according to the research, outright refusal of service to intoxicated patrons occurs in only about five percent of the cases, and some form of intervention occurs in only 14 percent of all cases. In addition, with police short on staff for enforcement activities, few establishments have been cited or closed in the past several years for serving intoxicated persons.

“We’ve known that people are being over-served just by the number of DWI arrests and crashes year after year,” says Linda Atkinson, director of the DWI Resource Center. “We are very glad to have some hard data on what’s going wrong and can now focus on improving the training and beefing up enforcement.”

The nationally funded study included tape-recorded interviews of 41 servers, managers and owners at randomly selected licensed on-site establishments, crash data and “pseudo patrons.” The pseudo patrons were UNM theatre students who were trained to impersonate intoxicated patrons.

Servers interviewed in the study mentioned several reasons for patrons being over-served including fear of confrontation and intimidation, fear of losing their gratuity, poor logistics and lack of management support.

“The quality of the mandated training programs varies greatly,” says Wheeler. “It was clear that many participants were cynical about whether the state was really committed to responsible beverage service.”

Suggestions for improved training included comprehensive implementation of the curriculum, skill development in delaying service and refusing service, increased oversight of training, and training specific to servers.

For more information on the event call 881-1084 or 277-1821.

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