Underage drinking discouraged
Area bars, groups promote dry holiday
With the holidays soon upon us and the ending of another academic year, people have a reason to celebrate. Students armed with fake IDs, friends' IDs, any IDs — and sometimes even no IDs — beat a path to local watering holes to begin the festivities.
By Alan Grunspan Special to the Kansan
Both high school and college students partake in underage drinking. According to the March 1992 Congressional Quarterly Researcher, drinking is the No.1 drug problem in college towns.
Some drinking establishments in Lawrence are well aware of the problem. Chuck Magerl, owner of Free State Brewing Co. Inc., 636 Massachusetts St., said that anyone who wanted to order an alcoholic drink must be 21 and must have proof of identification.
"We are continuously watching for under- age drinkers," he said. "We can't afford to be fined."
Mike Newman, associate director of company operations for Applebee's International, said, "If a waiter or waitress is unsure about the validity of a customer's driver's license, they are to go to the manager on duty for further assistance in determining its legality. That's policy."
because it was becoming a family restaurant.
Newman said that Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar, 2520 Iowa St., did not experience many problems with alcohol
Magerl said that the bartender or manager would call a cab if a customer had one too many drinks.
"I believe that our customers are not mass consumers of alcohol and are looking for quality rather than quantity," he said.
At the University, organizations and KU police are trying to reduce underage drinking.
KU police offer many informational programs, such as discussion panels dealing with alcohol consumption and fake IDs, in residence halls at the beginning of each semester.
Officer Burdel Welsh said, "With the new tougher standards, as of July 1, 1993, for the state of Kansas, the legal blood alcohol content was lowered from.10 percent to.08 percent. This makes it easier to become legally impaired faster."
Greeks Advocating Mature Management of Alcohol also addresses alcohol consumption. Tim Marks, Salina senior and president of the group, said that the organization focused primarily on the greek community and sometimes on the Lawrence community.
The organization is sponsoring a "Red Ribbon" campaign. It will hand out 20,000 red ribbons to tie to car antennae as symbols of not drinking from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, he said.
"During the holiday break, the students won't have the services of the buses and Saferide. It's crucial that they are careful over break because one bad accident can ruin anybody's vacation," Marks said.
Leaf mulching is disposal method of choice
The Associated Press
SPRINGFIELD;Mass. — If you can't burn 'em or bury 'em,let 'em rot and sell'em.
That's what this city and hundreds of other New England communities have been doing since environmental concerns ended the practice of burning leaves that used to obscure village and town in haze in the late fall.
"Springfield was one of the original four communities to try composting in 1987, and it now has the biggest municipal program in the state," said Sumner Martinson, recycling program coordinator for Massachusetts.
All of the leaves raked by residents of the city of 160,000 people — some 4,000 tons — are laid out in massive windrows on top of a closed section of the city landfill on a spit of land extending into the Connecticut River. Even chopped fine, the leaves plus another 3,000 tons of separately mulched tree branches, weeds and other yard waste cover about eight acres.
By using special shredding equipment that chomps through the paper bags in which the
leaves are collected and keeping the leaves soaked to speed decomposition, the city is able to produce finished compost in about six months, said Michael Pattavina, the city's chief composter.
The city gives away a few hundred tons to residents for use on their gardens, uses a few more hundred tons for its own plantings and fill for ballfields and sells the rest — about 5,000 tons annually — to the highest bidder. Currently, it is getting about $2 a ton from a private firm based in the Midwest, but Pattavina wants to add screening equipment that he figures could triple or quadruple the price.
The portable machine, capable of gobbling 100 cubic yards of tree limbs and other woody debris an hour, serves Springfield and a dozen smaller communities, Pattavina said.
Martinson said, "We're now concentrating on other organic residential waste and the commercial and agricultural sector. All you have to do is offer the service and make it easy for them and people will recycle. Once people understand why they are doing it, it makes sense to them."
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COMMUNITY • *K-you* • December 8, 1993