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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR

Rehm

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

2/19/07

HB

1193

SHORT TITLE

Serving Alcohol to Minors Penalties

SB

ANALYST

C. Sanchez

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY07

FY08

NFI

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC)

Administrative Office of the District Attorneys (AODA)

Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court (BCMC)

Department of Health (DOH)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 1193 amends Section 60-7B-1 NMSA 1978 to base the degree of the offense of

selling or giving alcohol to minors upon the volume of alcoholic beverage sold, served, given,

bought or delivered. The first violation is a misdemeanor if the volume of alcoholic beverage is:

(1)

five hundred milliliters or less of spirits;

(2)

one liter or less of wine; or

(3)

one quart or less of beer.

Any violation is a fourth degree felony if the volume of alcoholic beverage is:

(1)

more than five hundred milliliters of spirits;

(2)

more than one liter of wine; or

(3)

more than one quart of beer.

House Bill 1193 – Page

2

HB 1193 also provides that it is not a violation of the Liquor Control Act when a parent, legal

guardian or adult spouse of a minor serves alcoholic beverages to that minor on licensed

premises.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

In amending Section 60-7B-1 NMSA 1978 to provide that the first violation of the statute is a

misdemeanor where the volume of the alcoholic beverage provided does not exceed a proscribed

amount, HB1193 has created a new misdemeanor that will create an undetermined number of

additional criminal cases for courts.

According to the Administrative Office of the Courts, there will be a minimal administrative cost

for statewide update, distribution and documentation of statutory changes. Any additional fiscal

impact on the judiciary would be proportional to the enforcement of this law and commenced

prosecutions. New laws, amendments to existing laws and new hearings have the potential to

increase caseloads in the courts, thus requiring additional resources to handle the increase.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

According to the Administrative Office of the District Attorneys, the law should remain the

same; a violation of Subsection A should be a 4

th

degree felony regardless of the quantity of

alcohol. It will be a heavy burden for the State to have to prove quantity in these cases. There

will be times that it will even be impossible to prove the quantity. So there will be occasions in

which the State can prove that a minor was illegally provided alcohol, but the case will be

weakened by an inability to prove quantity. I do not understand why the State should be placed

in such a position.

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

The courts are participating in performance-based budgeting. This bill may have an impact on

the measures of the district courts in the following areas:

•

Cases disposed of as a percent of cases filed

•

Percent change in case filings by case type

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

According to the Administrative Office of the District Attorneys, if this bill is enacted, the

Legislature will have succeeded in making it harder to prosecute a person for illegally providing

alcohol to minors. It will make it harder to hold a violator accountable. It will give Defendants a

“loop-hole" to use to fight the case. It will make my job and the jobs of prosecutors in this state

even harder. It will make the jobs of law enforcement even harder. It will send a message to the

community that it is not as bad to provide a minor with “some" alcohol, just as long as it is not “a

lot" of alcohol.

TECHNICAL ISSUES

House Bill 1193 needs to lay out penalties for a subsequent offense, as that is missing at this

time.

House Bill 1193 – Page

3

OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES

According to the Department of Health, in 2005, 42% of New Mexico high school students

reported drinking alcohol in the past month (Youth Risk and Resiliency Survey). Two-thirds

(68%) of these high-school students who drank reported high-risk binge drinking (drinking five

or more drinks on a single occasion). These levels of consumption represent a serious health

threat to New Mexico’s youth. Alcohol consumption is a risk factor in the three leading causes

of death in the underage population (motor vehicle crashes, homicide, and suicide), and binge

drinking is strongly associated with a wide range of risk behaviors such as drinking and driving,

fighting, weapon carrying, and sexual activity.

The best available review of alcohol-related prevention strategies (Babor et al, Alcohol: No

Ordinary Commodity

, 2003) rates server liability statutes as having a “high degree of

effectiveness" in reducing alcohol availability and preventing alcohol-related harm among high-

risk adolescent drinkers. In

2004

, in an effort to strengthen its laws and reduce the availability of

alcohol to its underage population, New Mexico increased the penalty for provision of alcohol to

a minor, from a misdemeanor to a fourth degree felony. New Mexico’s statute allowed only

relatively narrow exemptions for family members under certain circumstances.

Despite this increased penalty and increased enforcement of the enhanced statute, evidence

continues to show that adult provision of alcohol to minors is a major problem in New Mexico.

In 2005, according to the YRRS, a quarter (26%) of all high school drinkers, and almost one-

third (32%) of binge drinkers reported they got their alcohol by giving money to “someone else

to buy it for me" (this was the most common reported source). By comparison, relatively small

proportions of high school drinkers reported that they bought their own alcohol at a store (3%),

restaurant (2%), or public event (2%). Consistent with these findings, it is adults who respond to

“shoulder-tap" purchase requests from minors, not servers in licensed establishments, who are

the principle target for the current tough statute. The current statute provides adequate

protections from penalty for responsible servers.

HB1193, by reducing the penalty for first-offense provision to a minor (from a fourth degree

felony to a misdemeanor); by adding exemptions for provision of smaller amounts of alcohol;

and by expanding the exemption for family members to allow provision on licensed premises,

would represent a significant step away from tough server liability statutes and their attendant

prevention effects at reducing alcohol-related harm among youth.

WHAT WILL BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT ENACTING THIS BILL

Status Quo

CS/nt