Opinion: Lip service about alcohol at tribal casinos

Monday, May 18, 2009  

" I am less than impressed with Mohegan Sun's response. Mohegan Sun's misguided marginal response to these tragedies is to reduce their free drink servings from three drinks per hour to two drinks per hour. This pathetic and transparent response is a superficial and ineffective action to quell public outcry, like the response of state police.

The human body can metabolize about three-quarters of an ounce of alcohol per hour and no more than that amount. One beer, one mixed drink or one glass of wine contains about this much alcohol. It does not matter how much a person has had to drink, that is the rate of metabolism.

When someone drinks more than one drink per hour, it starts to overwhelm one's ability to process it. In other words, the drinker is under the influence. Depending on how fast someone drinks and how many drinks are consumed, an individual could be drunk in a relatively short period of time.

Mohegan Sun's decision to reduce the hourly consumption rate to two drinks rather than three means that people will still get drunk and get in their cars to drive home. Training of bartenders and waitresses to make sure people are less drunk is not helpful. Whether it's two drinks or three drinks per hour, we will have drunken drivers going the wrong way on highways and smashing into innocent people."

Get the Story:
Michael J . Hanley: Lip Service Over Alcohol Policies (The New London Day 5/18)

Earlier Story:
Mohegan Tribe expands alcohol service training (4/30)