Outdated law results in stronger drinks and more dangerous roads

The South Carolina House of Representatives passed a bill in the first week of this year's legislative session that would replace the minibottle law. The Senate should act quickly to concur.

Current state law requires bars and res-taurants to prepare drinks using minibottles. This is the only state with such a law.

That law ensures that South Carolina has stronger drinks than the rest of the nation. And that fact may be a factor in the state's high traffic death rate. The Palmetto State has the second highest death rate for alcohol-related traffic incidents in the nation. And that rate is rising faster here than anywhere else in the nation.

It certainly couldn't hurt to change the law to allow drinking establishments to serve drinks on a free-pour basis out of larger bottles. That would result in drinks with lower alcohol content.

The problem is that bartenders in the rest of the nation usually use an ounce of liquor in a drink. In South Carolina, they are forced to use the entire 1.7 ounces of liquor in a minibottle. The problem is compounded in mixed drinks that have more than one type of liquor in them.

This problem is particularly acute in the tourism industry. Visitors from other states are not expecting the strength nor the price of drinks in South Carolina.

The only opposition to changing the law comes from liquor distributors who would have to change their systems and suffer disruption to their markets. Some lawmakers also worry about losing money through changing the state's liquor tax structure.

But those problems can be overcome, and they are insignificant when compared with the issue of highway safety.

There is quite simply no reason for state law to require that drinks in South Carolina be stronger than drinks in the rest of the nation.

Lawmakers have debated and discussed this issue for years. Meanwhile, the number of alcohol-related highway deaths continues to grow.

They should stop debating and act. Because changing the law would require amending the state constitution, a referendum is necessary. Lawmakers must act this year so that the question can be included on this November's ballot.

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