Louisiana senator introduces a bill to raise the minimum age to enter, work at a bar to 21

The minimum age to enter a bar in most of the U.S. is 18. Louisiana is no different but Senator Beth Mizell hopes to change that.

Beth Mizell introduced the "Card 'em Act" bill, which would raise the minimum age to enter and work at a Louisiana bar to 21 years old. Mizell said that following the death of LSU student Madison Brooks there was a need to make adjustments to how the handling of underage drinking is managed.

"The situation with Madison Brooks illustrated how many layers went wrong and look at how the underage kids are being served and sometimes even over-served. The way our process works really illustrated that we need to do something to address the fact our legal drinking age is 21 but were allowing 18 and 20 year old's to drink," said Mizell.

Brooks, 19, died in the early morning hours of January 15 after she was struck by a car in Baton Rouge. According to reports, Brooks was at a student-focused bar, became impaired, was sexually assaulted and later the same evening was struck by a vehicle. Mizell hopes her bill would prevent similar incidents in the future.

"We are creating an environment that allows people to be a victim," she said. "This bill can hopefully create an environment that's more conducive to mature people making good decisions if they decide to drink."

"Brooks’ case reveals a lack of protected environments," The Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault said in a statement. "Places where people work, live, and socialize, must be safe and secure and promote healthy interactions; steps can and should be taken to minimize risks. These are reasonable expectations and must be ensured across the board by those in roles of responsibility, such as business owners and administrators."

Denzel Living, a local bar owner in Downtown Lafayette, says that the bill can have both positive and negative consequences. "Our crowd fluctuates because it is a college town and on Thursday we're mostly a college crowd and we make money only from the door because these minors can't drink. Saturday nights are when it is a much older crowd that can drink, and it's kind of like certain nights are more catered to certain groups," he said.

Although this may be true for our Thursday nights, this bill can also help businesses because it usually is a lot of younger people downtown because older groups do not want to come in the area."

Knowing this bill directly focuses on bar owners, Living states, "Drinking wherever you are, not just at a bar can cause many unfortunate outcomes." It is unlawful for any person under the age of 21 to be sold any tobacco product, or to play any table game or slot machine, but it’s not uncommon for someone that's 18 to be at a bar in Louisiana. Yet, it is illegal to obtain or try to obtain alcoholic beverages under the age of 21.

Louisiana is known for its food, music, gaming, partying, and festivals; these cultural norms in the state like getting to go cups at bars, Mardi Gras Festivities, and the allowance of furnishing alcohol to a minor when a parent or guardian is present is often seen as normal behavior.

"There are cultural norms that are normal and they are cultural norms that are crazy when we let our younger people think this is a necessary way to handle being 18,19, and 20," said Mizell.

Primarily, if you look at what happened with Madison Brooks and don't think we need to make some adjustments with how we are handling underage drinking then that's a problem. There were so many opportunities with what happened that night to look at how we can improve how we monitor and encourage underage drinking."

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Card 'em Act would raise the minimum age to enter a Louisiana bar to 21