New Orleans Insurance

People live here call “low, flat Nothin ‘.” East of the country, the range of refineries is exactly the light of the night near Beaumont, and specifically to the west of the big family fields of Louisiana. Interstate 10 runs schnurgerade miles and miles through here, a Lost Highway, here and there, with a strong, white cross.

The crosses are almost always near the West Street crossing, and mark the places where adolescents, weaving home bars and honky tonks across the boundary of Louisiana, do the road, crash and die. Wanda Grimes, a substitute teacher in Beaumont, aged 19, whose son was killed by a drunk driver at home from Louisiana in 1992, he called “our blood Border.”

For years, she worked and other supporters sewing Stop the hole, Louisiana, a law on protection of the criminal bar owners selling alcohol to people between 18 and 20, even when it is prescribed by the ‘adolescent purchase alcohol. She won last year, or if she thought at the very least, if the law prohibiting the sale of alcohol to people under 21

But then last week, the Louisiana Supreme Court decided that the State alcohol consumption age of 21 is a form of discrimination based on age, and raised the 1995 Act and a 1986 law that excluded those under 21 buying alcohol. Louisiana, the only State in the nation with an age-18 drinking water.

“I wonder how many people have contributed to bury their children now,” said Grimes.

In Louisiana, the judgement of the Court of Justice has brought joy to the extent of establishment and adolescence-age drinkers, but embarrassing, others are sorry that the State of third rate banana republic with its own law and its way of doing things. Mrs. Grimes and other supporters, it was as if the state unfurled a banner on its borders with Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas to welcome teens to drink.

Although many in the decision of the LA as woefully short on common sense, New Orleans, 4 to 3, the judgement was the judicial equivalent of a party Keg. Within a few hours of the decision, beer was flowing in the mouths of 18, students and Senior High School in the French Quarter and in bars near Tulane University, and some clubs have celebrated with owners $ 2 cans cutting rates and lobster.

The Attorney General of Louisiana, Richard Ieyoub, the Supreme Court on its decision; Dir Mike Foster, the legislature hastily by a constitutional amendment to repeal the Act 21. In the meantime, Mr. Ieyoub all others who have stopped selling alcohol to 18 to 20 years to its request for a rehearing.

Less than a week after the decision by the Clinton administration warned the LA find a way for the trial. The state loses $ 17 million in road money if they are not in conformity with the 1986 National Minimum Age beverage law, under which states their right to drink at age 21

“It is an embarrassment for our state,” said James Donelon state representative, Republican of Metairie. He said the difference was deliberate and was a magnet for young drinkers age limit of countries and entire nation. But the judgement of the Court of Justice is the worse thing, “he said. The state has officially opened its door to teen-drinkers and drivers age. “It is terrible.

The statistics are difficult to find because the reports of accidents which often lack details, where young people were and what they do. But Mrs. Grimes tells a frightening statistics, a result of their own research. During 1993, in the west of the track 50 miles of the line I-10 between their home and Lake Charles, there were 64 accidents in which persons under 21 or have been injured or killed . All parts of them drink.

There were only 16 accidents in the same year in the journey towards East on Interstate 10

Drinking is almost a point of pride in Louisiana, where young people absorb down Jello lacés with projectiles hard and run Schnaps “to go” Becher to return to their cars in bars. New Orleans, “Drive-up daiquiris.

The hall of alcohol is one of the most powerful in state government, which explains why the gap - as obvious as it was - lasted nine years, kill, “said Catherine Morgan, director of the victim “Services for Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Baton Rouge.

The legal case began last year in Evangeline Parish, if the four men against 21 and the law on local court. Two men, Burke Pierotti and Wendell Manuel, owned bars, and they arrived in the application of Mr. Manuel’s son, Jody, and a friend, Stacey Foret, both of them have less than 21 years.

“I was in the Navy during World War II, in a 31-man gun crews in the Pacific,” said Pierotti, 71, during Kazan Hotel Bar in Mamou. “I just had 21 , But half my team was 21, and when we went back to our home port, boys could not come at a bar with me and take a drink. Well, I think if a man is old enough to fight and die for his country, then a group of monkeys white hairs in Washington, DC, has no right to say it can not have a drink. And if I meaning in this respect. ”

Mr. Manuel, is underway, a bar just a few kilometers, said: “We do not want someone to see death. They are gonna drink. It is better to drink when they like in their cars. ”

Lawyers for bar owners argued that before the state can not discriminate between 18 and 20 years in their efforts to reduce drunk driving, it would be first on the implementation of the “other non-discriminatory methods, including public education, and a tax credit enables retailers to offer free non-alcoholic beverages, designated for pilots.

Finally, the case landed before the Supreme Court of the State, where four judges - is a temporary fill-in - has decided that lawyers had a point.

The state of public opinion, 18 years and adults, and it can not be free of any right to grant other adults, the court decided. Writing for the majority, Justice Catherine D. Kimball said the state failed to prove that the 21 and the law “clearly supports the important functions of government objectives of improving the security of the highway.