Outside of its scenic vistas and love for diet soda, Utah is known for its strict liquor laws. One group is looking to change these laws into what they describe as “common sense” regulations. Safer Utah wants to provide adults with the avenue to enjoy the drinks of their choosing while still protecting minors from consumption.
Brian Jones from the organization called into the KOAL Newsroom to discuss the organization’s goals and its ‘Booze Barometer” survey.
“Safer Utah is, in a very general sense, an organization whose goal is to bring together stakeholders, really from across the spectrum that have any interest in alcohol policy in the state of Utah,” explained Jones of the movement,” it serves to bring all those people together, those people in organizations together to create robust policies that involve and include the perspectives of everyone that has an interest in this.”
Continuing on the importance of including different perspectives in the conversation on alcohol policy Jones stated,” One of the interesting things about Utah is because of the dominant culture, we’ve got legislators, we’ve got policymakers and politicians who very often are making policy on alcohol use and alcohol regulation. And there’s often not an experiential element to that conversation because so many of our elected officials and politicians choose not to partake of alcohol, which is, of course, a perfectly valid lifestyle choice.” He added,” so the whole point of bringing this was to make sure all these voices are hopefully being represented in those conversations … it’s not about making the law more permissive, making it more available, making it more accessible. It’s just about creating policies that make sense for everybody, that serve everyone’s interests across the spectrum.”
One measure the organization uses to help guide its policy efforts is the ‘Booze Barometer” survey. “ This is a data gathering mechanism that is intended to gather opinions and positions and priorities from not just the public at large, but from people in the industry, people in commercial spaces, from prevention and advocacy organizations. I think the point of it is to gather that information from across the spectrum and say, ‘Everyone has a stake in this, because we all live in the community, whether you drink or don’t drink.’ So we have an interest in what’s happening from a safety standpoint. We have an interest in what’s happening from an economic standpoint and from a cultural standpoint. This is the community we live in.”
In closing, Jones shared,” I just hope that people will take a look at this and hopefully participate. Again, I think the most important thing that I want to reiterate is that everyone has a voice in this conversation, whichever perspective one approaches alcohol policy from. And I hope everyone will get involved and try to make the outcomes better for everybody.”
To learn more about Safer Utah, you can visit saferdrinks.org or follow the organization on Facebook.