News Currents

Maryland tends to alcohol training

Groups offering state-mandated alcohol-awareness training to bartenders and liquor-store workers would have to provide at least three hours of instruction and give a state-approved test under rules proposed by the Maryland Comptroller of the Treasury. The proposal would standardize requirements for programs offered by nearly 20 vendors and about 250 trainers following complaints that some have shortchanged students on training time. The courses are supposed teach servers about the legal and physical limits of alcohol consumption, mainly to prevent drunken driving.

The proposal incorporates suggestions from the Restaurant Association of Maryland, which offers a training program called Maryland’s BEST.

Maryland law requires every establishment that sells alcoholic beverages, including retail stores, to have at least one employee certified by a state-approved alcohol-awareness program.

Alcohol-related traffic fatalities in Maryland have declined since the law was passed in 1989. Such deaths peaked at 407 in 1986 and reached a low of 215 in 1999, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In 2004, the last report year available, there were 286 alcohol-related traffic deaths in the state, according to NHTSA.

Granite State volunteers

Wanted: about 200 volunteers to help clean basements of mold and mildew left over from the May flood in New Hampshire.

More than 300 families statewide are living with toxic waste, mold and mildew as a result of the flooding, said Tim Dupre, executive director of Volunteer NH! The group was contacted to help people clean out, but more volunteers are needed he said of the organization’s “Mud Out” program, which helps homeowners who don’t have flood insurance.

“I would tell you if we have cleaned out 20 homes, that’s a good number,” Dupre said. So far, only about 10 new people have been trained and agreed to help clean up other homes. The areas in greatest need across the state range from Gilford to Rochester to Goffstown and part of Nashua.

Mass. mandate

Massachusetts officials have unveiled proposed regulations that would set the minimum a company would have to do to be exempt from a new $295 per-worker assessment as part of the state’s new health care law. Under the proposal, companies could meet that threshold if at least 25 percent of their full-time employees are enrolled in the company’s group health plan. Businesses that don’t meet that goal could still be exempt from the assessment if they contribute 33 percent of the cost of an individual’s health care premium.

N.Y. tour boat lawsuits

Last fall’s capsizing of a tour boat that killed 20 people on Lake George, N.Y., including 19 from Michigan, has led to two more lawsuits. One filed by the estate of Marjorie H. Perry, 77, Livonia, Mich., says the makers of the tour boat’s pump and engine should among those held responsible. The lawsuit asks for $12.5 million in damages.

The other lawsuit was filed by the estates of Beverly B. Becker, 78, and Joann L. Manore, 74, both of Temperance, Mich., against several companies and individuals, including the boat’s owner, operator and captain.

The National Transportation Safety Board continues to investigate what caused the October accident.

Both lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court in Albany.

Pennsylvania risk pool

A code enforcement officer told Suzette Heydt of Allendale, Pa., that she would have to put up a four-foot fence around her kids’ inflatable pool, which could raise the cost of the $24.99 pool by hundreds of dollars. “A baby pool, whether it’s a foot deep or three feet, can be even more dangerous than a pool with sturdy side walls that are four feet high,” officer Sandy Nicolo said. “The fact is that children can find a way to get into anything.”

Enforcement officers say many people are surprised to learn that some kiddie pools, like in-ground pools, require fences. Under Pennsylvania’s Uniform Construction Code, pools more than 24 inches deep must be completely enclosed by a fence or a screened enclosure equipped with self-closing and self-latching gates.

Heydt said she has deflated the pool and doesn’t plan to use it.