Wither the "Power Hour"?

An End to 'Power Hour'

A tragic alcohol fatality spurs a crackdown on the time-honored custom of birthday bingeing up north.

By T. Trent Gegax
Newsweek

June 6 issue - Throwing up in the men's room might not seem much of a birthday celebration. But for Gregg Rock, and a lot of newly legal drinkers, it's the price of turning 21. For Rock, it started with "pre-drinking" a bottle of Bacardi rum with college buddies last Wednesday before walking into a University of Minnesota tavern. It was midnight, the magic hour he became legal. On the bar rail there were soon "The Three Wise Men" (Jim Beam, Johnny Walker, Jack Daniels). The sound system played the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated." Rock pounded. Then his body rebelled. "Yes, I puked," said a visibly relieved Rock, a senior. "But I know my limit."

It's known as "power hour," the postmidnight drinking spree common on many campuses. Steve Johnson, a 20-year-old Minnesota student, says he's looking forward to spending his power hour in August like Rock did. "It's a rite of passage," he says, "like you got to show how much you can drink." But Johnson won't be powering up at a tavern the moment he turns 21. A stunning alcohol overdose during a "power hour" has triggered moves to end the custom in North Dakota and Minnesota.

This week Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is expected to sign a bill into law prohibiting bars from serving alcohol to 21-year-olds until 8 a.m. on their birthday. North Dakota passed the same law last month. The new legal tool is aimed at curbing binge drinking on college campuses. "We're on the verge of more kids' killing themselves," says Bob Pomplun, who conducts alcohol-safety classes for employees of bars in the Upper Midwest. "Young people don't know how to drink smartly, so we need to teach intelligent drinking."

Anne Buchanan thought she had talked through all the dangers with her son Jason Reinhardt, right up till the moment last August that he walked out the door for his power hour with friends at Minnesota State University at Moorhead. Jason said he knew how dangerous it was, but he also knew that his friends would watch out for him. "But they didn't know what to watch out for," Buchanan says. He died of acute alcohol poisoning in his sleep. Stunned by Jason's tragic passing, legislators in the northland moved quickly. Even the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association didn't object. "Whatever we can do to limit problems, we do," says Jim Farrell, the group's executive director, "regardless of whether it makes sense."

But the trend to stop power hour will not likely catch on in next-door Wisconsin. A lot more than a river separates Minnesota (12,500 bars) and Wisconsin (30,000 bars), two states of roughly equal population. A recent Harvard study ranked Wisconsin first in the nation in binge drinking. But the legislature is considering lowering the drinking age to 19 for active-duty service members. The bipartisan bill has a dozen cosponsors and the support of a powerful congressman in U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner. "It's the outgrowth of the German heritage," says Bill Dixon, a Madison lawyer who ran Gary Hart's presidential campaign. "It's a state where we still do consider beer a food, and brandy's not far behind." Wisconsin is a state where even children can drink legally in bars, as long as an approving parent is on the premises.

The country's bar industry hasn't shown a taste for a nationwide power-hour ban. The tavern industry is already reeling from the no-smoking bans, and generally believes that self-policing is the most effective way to manage drinkers. It's already against the law to serve alcohol to an intoxicated customer. But anybody who has ever been inside a bar knows bartenders can be rather lenient about that rule. Raising the drinking age to 21 significantly reduced fatalities. Will the new power-hour law? "By itself I doubt it will have a major impact," says Dr. Henry Wechsler, director of college alcohol studies at the Harvard School of Public Health. "But if it saves one life, that will be good." That's something that Jason Reinhardt's mother knows all too well.

With Dirk Johnson
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

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