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WINE IS FINE, BUT LIQUOR IS QUICKER

Old King Cole was a merry old soul,

That wasn't fruit juice in his bowl;

But hard stuff, he kept down to size,

He didn't let them advertise.

Shame on the loathsome liquor industry. Seagram has started advertising on

television. And if Seagram's ads are successful, how long will Connecticut's

own Heublein be able to hold out? That's quite a change. Liquor hasn't

advertised electronically since 1934. That ban has been self-imposed, a sop to

the nation for its kindness in repealing prohibition.

But now producers feel that the ban has morphed into a kind of unilateral

disarmament. Big Liquor's self-restraint has been capitalized on by its mortal

enemies. No, not Mothers Against Drunk Driving, silly; the beer and wine

industries. While hard liquor has confined itself to newspapers, magazines,

and billboards, beer has been nuking it with $600 million a year on

television. Small wonder that hard liquor sales have tailed off.

Small wonder, also, that everyone from the president to the General Assembly

have rebuked Big Liquor for turning aggressive. The FCC is scandalized, and

the networks say they won't accept the ads. Not yet, anyway. Luckily for them,

acceptance is not in their hands. It's the local stations who make that

decision, many of whom admit to being somewhat less picky than their parent

networks.

Quietly nervous, if not yet panicky, is Big Beer. It dreads an awful scenario

where Big Liquor does indeed create a presence on the airwaves. No, beer isn't

afraid of the competition. What it fears is an emotional revulsion to all that

alcohol advertising. That could lead to a law banning not only hard liquor

ads, but beer ads as well. Now we're talking big bucks.

Congressmen could personally enjoy such an unsettled scene. They'd make a

bundle. Those chintzy beer, wine, and liquor guys only lubricated election

campaigns with $4.4 million in 1994. You can bet it was higher last year, but

if dangerous new legislation looms, it will surely skyrocket in '98. Mostly to

incumbents.

As parents, we could cheerfully support such a total ban. Why on earth do we

let beer and wine advertise on TV now? Cigarettes can't. As we try to protect

our kids from the ravages of addictions, we happily ban Joe Camel. Why then do

we let the Budweiser bullfrogs, nearly as popular with kids as Joe, cavort

right into our own living rooms, in living color.

Maybe it's time to review our basic policy. The least dangerous drug,

marijuana, gets you jail time for mere possession. A riskier drug, beer, gets

promoted on television. The most dangerous, tobacco, gets sold in a million

stores.

Is it too much to ask for some common sense? Rather than accepting hard liquor

on the screen, lets take beer off. Alcohol has great capacity for addiction.

Let's treat it that way. Don't ban it, but don't advertise it. Take it off the

airwaves for sure, but also out of the print media. That includes beer, hard

liquor, and wine.

And take it out of supermarkets too. If people want to drink, God bless them.

They can do it at bars, restaurants, parties, and at home. But no advertising,

and no convenience. Buy your liquor at the liquor store, where they're

accustomed to checking ages. Acquire your desire for alcohol at home or from

word of mouth, not from America's foremost industry - advertising.

This is not to say that drinking is all bad. Apparently a little wine each day

is good for the heart. But drinking is dangerous. It warrants sensible

cautions and controls. Glamorizing it and making it available for impulse

purchase is asking for trouble. We should know that by now. The legislature

can't control the airwaves, but it can at least move beer from the

supermarkets back into the liquor stores. Let them start studying it now.

(Bill Collins, a former mayor of Norwalk, is a syndicated columnist.)