State Senator Jeffrey Klein has proposed legislation that would stop the sale of sugary "alcopops" in bodegas, relegating them to liquor stores, and make it downright illegal to sell caffeinated beverages like Four Loko anywhere in New York. But NYC Health Commissioner Thomas Farley says Klein doesn't go far enough, and he testified at a City Council hearing yesterday that he wants to banish from bodegas all "premixed, carbonated, flavored malt drinks with alcohol content as high as 12 percent." This would include such fun, magical elixirs as Mike's Hard Lemonade! At a hearing in Albany, his assistant commissioner, Daliah Heller, lined up malt beverages in the cross hairs:
Unfortunately, these ‘bridging’ beverages are readily available to the adolescents to whom they are marketed. Alcopops are sold alongside beer, juice, and soda, in grocery and convenience stores. Children and adolescents already frequent these outlets for food and beverages, increasing their exposure to alcopops.
Assembly Member Ortiz and Senator Klein have introduced legislation to designate alcopops with an alcohol content of 6% or higher as liquor, thus restricting the sale of these drinks to liquor stores and taking them out of the grocery stores and delis where underage drinkers are more likely to purchase them. Passage of this bill would result in 19,000 fewer places - 8,700 in New York City - for kids to buy high-alcohol-content alcopops.
However, some of the products that are most popular among underage drinkers have lower alcohol contents, often 5% or 4.5%. They still target children, and can be just as harmful as drinks with slightly more alcohol. Not including these beverages in the bill means preserving underage access to alcopops in thousands of grocery stores, delis, and convenience stores across the state. For this reason, we recommend that this bill be modified to include all flavored malt beverages, rather than only those with alcohol contents above 6%.
Farley's call for an expanded ban would need to go through Albany, and it's unclear if it will make it into the legislation. Klein's spokesperson Rich Azzopardi tells us, "We're on the same page as the Health Department as far as fighting underage drinking. We'll look at the proposal, but our belief is that it's beverages like Four Loko and Tilt that are the problem."
