Anheuser ends opposition to .08 in Missouri

Modern Brewery Age, Jan 22, 2001

A Missouri state bill to shift from a 0.10 blood alcohol standard to .08 gained impetus when Anheuser-Busch announced it would not oppose the measure.

Similar proposals have failed in the last five sessions of the Missouri General Assembly.

Missouri and more than two dozen other states use a blood-alcohol standard of 0.10 percent. Kansas' limit is 0.08 percent.

The effort to lower the limit was quashed last year after heavy opposition from Anheuser-Busch and others in the alcoholic beverage and hospitality industries.

However, last week A-B lobbyist John Britton told the Missouri Senate Transportation Committee that the St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch would no longer oppose the 0.08 percent standard.

"We have no objection to 0.08," Britton told senators, and said that the brewer did not want Missouri to lose federal highway dollars as a result of not passing the measure.

States that fail to adopt the 0.08 percent standard will lose 2% of their federal highway aid starting in 2004. The loss would rise to 8% by 2007.

For Missouri, that would mean losses of $8.7 million in 2004 and $34.8 million a year in 2007.

Despite the A-B shift, the Missouri Beer Wholesalers Association reiterated opposition to the measure, asserting that the 0.08 percent limit fails to address the real problem, repeat drunken drivers with blood-alcohol levels of 0.15 percent or higher.

Anheuser lobbyist Britton said that the company remained opposed to an open container addendum to the bill.

Under current law, it is legal for anyone but the driver to have an open container of alcohol while in a vehicle.

Missouri last year lost $12 million in federal highway money because the legislature failed to adopt tougher restrictions on repeat drunken drivers or to ban open containers of alcohol while vehicles are on the roadway.