CITY AND AREA
The University Daily KANSAN
New laws to force changes in student drinking
Bars close tap on specials shut doors to 18-year-olds
Long lines sometimes seen at taverns will be more frequent now that the Kansas drinking age has been raised to 19, says Ken Wallace, owner of
Staff Reporter
By J.P. Conrov
Students returning to Lawrence who expect to down a few beers or bourbons may find their legal drinking habits abolished or changed because of new Kansas drinking laws.
On July 1, a number of drinking laws went into effect that raised the legal drinking age, prohibited "happy hours" and toughened penalties for drunken driving and for providing identification to persons underage.
State Rep. Robert H. Miller, R. Wellington and chairman of the conference committee that handled the liquor package, said recently that the prohibition of "happy hours" and the toughening of penalties for drunken driving were to promote responsible drinking and prevent taverns and private clubs from encouraging excessive drinking.
Kansas legislators also raised the drinking age to 19 after Congress forced state legislators to raise the drinking age or lose federal highway funds. Lawmakers also were concerned about the high rate of teenage automobile fatalities related to alcohol.
According to statistics published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in August 1984, 6.7 percent of all traffic accidents involving 18-year-olds were related to alcohol, 8 percent of all traffic accidents involving 19-year-olds were related to alcohol, and 5.3 percent of all traffic accidents involving 20-year-olds were related to alcohol.
States will lose 5 percent of their federal highway funds if their drinking age is not 21 by Sept. 30, 1968. If a state does not comply by Sept. 30, 1987, it will lose an additional 10 percent of its federal highway money.
Any person born on or after July 1,
1966, will have to wait until his or her
21st birthday to drink 3.3 beer, wine
or hard liquor legally in Kansas.
Kansas is expected to have about $6 million in federal highway funds withheld because the state will not meet the first deadline. But the state will receive the withheld funds in 1987 and then send them to its compliance with the federal law.
Miller said more than half of the states already had the drinking age at 21 and that Kansas was not making its college age students endure any undue hardship. Thirty-one states
have raised or are in the process of raising their drinking age.
"Kansas isn't inventing the wheel," he said.
Miller said Oklahoma raised the drinking age two years ago "cold turkey" to 21, without using progressive stages. His experiences at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, while his wife was working on her doctoral degree, showed him that neither students' social lives were affected by alcohol use their learning experience because they could not drink. he said.
Oklahoma police officers, he said,
also made fewer student arrests
because a lot of the crimes students
were involved in were related to
alcohol.
the jayhawk Cafe, 1340 Ohio St., and chairman of the board of the Tavern League of Kansas.
Ken Wallace, owner of the Jayhawk Cafe, 1340 Ohio St., said students who now cannot drink legally in taverns would just go to private parties. He said he had seen this happen at the University of Missouri after Missouri raised its drinking age, when he went visited Columbia to see what the effect might be in Lawrence.
"I can foresee driving down the streets of the Oread neighborhood on a weekend and see a keg of beer on every porch." Wallace said.
Almost all incoming freshmen and one-third of the sophomore class, Wallace said, would be excluded from school. KU social life that includes 3.2 beer.
Wallace, who also is chairman of the board of the Tavern League of Kansas, said there would be longer lines to get into bars and taverns because owners were going to have check patrons' identifications.
"We do anticipate a much greater problem with fake IDs," Wallace said.
Dick Rose, training officer for the Lawrence Police Department, said time would tell whether there would be an increase in use of false IDs. In the past, he said, high school students mainly had used them to get into taverns.
Rose said Lawrence police officers would not make more checks for underage persons in taverns than they had in the past. Officers already make rounds to let management and
People using false identifications generally thought that they were authentic, he said, but officers had so much experience in dealing with them that false IDs were not hard to detect.
patrons know that the police were checking, he said.
Purchase, possession or consumption of alcohol by anyone under 21 in a tavern or private club now can be punished with fines from $100 to $250 or 40 hours of community service or both.
Lending a driver's license to people under the legal age for purchase or consumption of alcohol can be punished with a $2,500 fine or up to a year in jail or both. And providing alcohol to people underage can be punished with a $1,000 fine or up to a year in jail or both.
The abolition of legal drinking practices for some KU students wasn't the only change the Legislature made. People who can legally drink will find that Kansas law now prohibits drinking specials at private clubs and taverns, such as "happy hours" and the practice of offering an unlimited number of drinks at a fixed price.
Wallace said he thought Friday afternoon drinking specials would no longer be at taverns because they
could not afford to keep prices that low the entire day.
"Friday nights are major profit nights during the week for bars," he said. "In order to run an afternoon special, bars would have to run them all day long."
John Lamb, director of the Kansas Alcohol Beverage Control division, said tavern owners had been asking the division whether they could buy their door and then sell draws and pitchers for one cent during a set time period.
Charging one cent for the beer or liquor is the same as giving it away, he said, because it did not come close to the actual cost. Lamb said the practice would be circumventing the law's intent.
"That's an area that will probably be interpreted by the courts," he said.
Mike Kirsch, owner of Gammons, 160 W. 23rd St., said the only way to eliminate "drink and drowns" was to set a minimum price for alcoholic beverages. The alcohol control division's interpretation and what is on
the law books have two different meanings, he said.
Most drinking establishments, Kirsch said, would just set drink prices lower for certain days instead of certain times during the day. He said students still would be able to find drink prices to fit their budgets.
Students who plan to drink at Lawrence private clubs and taverns should know that Kansas also has toughened its drunken driving laws. A person convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, under the n.c.w laws, could lose his or her driver's license and go to jail for up to one year.
People also no longer have the right to consult with an attorney before a blood, urine or breath test used to determine the presence of alcohol. Refusal of a test will result in an automatic six-month suspension of a person's driver's license.
According to Kansas Bureau of Investigation statistics, 47 arrests for driving under the influence were made in 1984 by KU police. Lawrence police made 328 arrests for DUI, and
the douglas County Sheriff's Department made 39 arrests.
Sgt. John Brothers, community relations officer for the KU police, said KU police were distributing a pamphlet and offering a program to present information about the new laws to KU students and organizations.
Brothers said people needed to take a responsible attitude toward drinking if they planned to drive afterward.
At a party that lasts from 8 p.m. to midnight, he said, someone could drink four drinks and still not drive impaired.
Brothers also recommended alternating alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages throughout the evening.
One way to avoid a DUI, Brothers said, is to use the buddy system. One person should assume the responsibilities for driving for a group and not drink.
"The only 100 percent safe way to prevent getting a DUI is if you're going to drink, don't drive," he said.
Energy inefficiency could leave you out in cold
Staff Reporter
BV JIII Ovens
Last winter, when temperatures dipped below zero, Lisa Wenski and her roommates sat huddled in blankets in front of the television in their relatively new apartment. They rolled towels to block out the drafts that crept in around the front door
"We had to set the heater up real high because the door wasn't sealed real tight and the cold air got in." Wenski, Kansas City, Kan., junior, said of her apartment at 2409 Morningside Drive.
The problem is one that faces many students who sign leases on apartments in the summer or fall when the temperature outside is 90 degrees. Then in December they worry that the apartment is an icebox.
Renters, apartment owners and government agencies often are reluctant to take responsibility for energy efficiency in rental buildings.
Students and other renters who pay their own utility bills and cannot afford to keep turning up the heat can afford only inexpensive measures to cope with winter chills, such as putting plastic over the windows or wrapping themselves up warmly.
Flanagan said, "It wasn't cold at all, because we put plastic on the kitchen window and on the two windows in the living room."
Leslie Flanagan, Coffeyville senior, said she kept her apartment warm by putting plastic over three of the windows. The apartment at 1332 Vermont St. is owned by Mastercraft Management Co., 129 Moodie Road.
The responsibility for energy efficiency lies with tenants, say some apartment managers.
Andy Galyardt, owner of Kaw Valley Management Inc., 901 Kenucky St, which manages apartments for owners of rental properties, says that many of the complaints he receives about high utility bills are the result of poor energy management by tenants themselves.
"It's so easy to say the designer or the builder or the developer is at hand, you can certainly begin with the person controlling the thermostat."
Apartment owners have little incentive to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings, especially when many of the buildings are separately metered, say those in the construction business.
Michael Treanor, an architect with Michael Treanor Architects, 1015 W. Ninth St., says he attempts to get his clients thinking about energy efficiency.
Three Lawrence architects say they promote energy efficiency when designing apartments for developers, but they do not always get it.
But he says problems often occur
in getting developers to incorporate energy efficient features.
Walter Hicks, an architect with Walter J. Hicks Associates, Architects and Planners, 3200 Mesa Way, says, "Developers are not necessarily a greedy bunch, but by the same token, they don't necessarily want to give money away."
"Developers know what they want," Treanor says. "The architect doesn't get a lot of choices."
Jo King, an architect with Williams, Huber, King, 123 W. Eighth St., says architects often are more
preoccupied with the energy issue than are builders.
"It's difficult to make energy efficient projects profitable," King says, "because the cost of energy efficient projects frequently takes away the profit."
King says it's also difficult to get banks to finance the higher mortgages necessary to pay for energy efficient features.
King says features that he considers basic to apartment buildings include a compact size, a high rating of insulation in walls and especially in ceilings, and interior vapor barriers in walls and ceilings to retain the quality of insulation over time and to reduce air infiltration.
King says he has gone even further to include passive solar features.
He also says he tries to incorporate thermal-pane windows, preferably with wooden frames; foam core doors, which have a metal surface; perimeter insulation around the foundation; and high-quality mechanical equipment, furnaces and air conditioners.
He says that the apartments he designed at 1158 Ohio St., which were built in 2007, are up for sale.
St., which were completed a year ago, are both good examples of passive solar apartments
But those apartments rent for $540 a month, which he says is high compared with other two-bedroom apartments.
Steve Padget, associate professor of architecture and urban development, lives in an apartment at 1200 Ohio St. designed by King. He says the utility bills for the apartment cost more than half of an apartment, but that is not the main advantage as far as he was concerned.
"It's more comfortable to live in," he said. "It's not drafty in the winter and in the summer. You can open the place up."
David Evans, a partner in Gould Evans Partnership, 706 Massachusetts St. says he designed energy-efficient apartments. Southview Commons, 17th and Ohio streets, which won a award design in 1978.
He says all the units face south, giving all living rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms a southern exposure. Southern windows have an overhang designed to provide shade in the summer but to let in the sun in the winter. And all units have attic fans, which keep the hot air out and draw cold air in.
Evans says that the state of Kansas has energy guidelines but that they are minimal.
"They are not difficult to meet at all," he says.
And Evans says no city ordinances exist concerning energy efficiency, such as minimum insulation requirements.
"It's the American attitude of independence, rightly or wrong," he said.
And, in the present political climate, regulations to require energy conservation measures in our city are likely to be adopted, city officials sai-
Gene Shaughnessy, the city's chief building inspector, says the city has not set minimum st-adrands for energy efficiency in the Minimum Structures Code for new construction. However, he says, the city has
See EI<sup>+</sup> HuY, p. 8, col. 1