BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – After the death of Madison Brooks, the East Baton Rouge Parish Alcoholic Beverage Control Board presented their findings on underage drinking to the East Baton Rouge Metro Council.
LSU student, Madison Brooks, 19, died in January of this year. The East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office said Brooks was standing in the middle of the road on Burbank Drive near Pelican Lakes Parkway when she was hit by a car.
Brooks had a blood alcohol level four times the legal limit and was allegedly raped by two individuals.
According to EBR Councilwoman Laurie Adams, a request was put in for a full report from the EBR Parish Alcohol Beverage Control Board, to look at underage drinking and future prevention suggestions for Baton Rouge.
“When we don’t have good community expectations in place,” says Adams, “that’s when we see tragic accidents happen.”
The ABC Board found from 1993 to 2022, those from the ages of 18 to 20 were found to be the highest age group for underage drinking in bars. They also found that many use fake IDs, or exchange 21 and over wristbands and LA Wallet was found to have issues.
The ABC Board also presented future discussions to have in order to prevent underage drinking:
- Raise the age to enter bars to 21
- Improve ID checking requirements and technology
- Make sure business owners are more accountable
- Discontinue banding and stamping ID, at the point of sales
Councilwoman Denise Amoroso believes that there need to be more rules in place for bar owners. She says a deterrent to underage drinking would be upping the fines for those who are caught, as well as bar owners.
Currently, Amoroso says fines for someone who is caught underage is $250, while the bar owners are fined $750. She believes the fines need to be higher, mentioning how states like Alaska pay tens of thousands of dollars if bars are caught serving underage individuals.
“Won’t be able to serve for like 3 days” says Amoroso if bars are caught multiple times serving to underage kids, adding “You know so we won’t let them serve on Mondays, so what good is that going to do?”
The Alcoholic Beverage Control Board will have their regular meeting on Thursday, March 9, at 4:30 p.m.
To view fines and procedures from the Alcohol Beverage Control Board, click here.
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