No bar fight over Utah booze ad

By: Todd Shields Dominic Welch, publisher of The Salt Lake Tribune, briefly entertained a vision of himself being led away from his newspaper in handcuffs. Alas, it was not to be. Potential for a First Amendment legal dust-up evaporated when a major distiller, under pressure from Utah authorities, pulled a full-page liquor advertisement that ran in the Tribune on successive Fridays.
Utah bans ads for alcoholic beverages, except for reduced-alcohol beer.
Welch calls the ban an infringement of free speech and a needless impediment to business. His Salt Lake City daily ran the ads for Brown-Forman Corp.'s Canadian Mist whiskey on April 21 and April 28.
"We're in the business of advertising legal products," Welch said. He said he is not trying to change Utah's liquor laws, "but the First Amendment is more important," he added.
Brown-Forman, of Louisville, Ky., included Salt Lake City in a 41-market buy for ads touting a new container for Canadian Mist. It believed the ads fit an exemption Utah created so national publications need not print special editions for the state's market, said Brown-Forman spokesman Phil Lynch.
When Utah's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control said the ads violated state law, Brown-Forman agreed to pull them, Lynch said.
Earlier, Salt Lake City District Attorney David Yocum told The Associated Press he did not intend to prosecute the newspaper. He cited a 1996 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the free-speech right to advertise liquor.
The Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control is the state's sole legal retailer of spirits, wine and full-strength beer. If its regulations are violated, it may remove a distiller's products from its shelves, said Earl Dorius, a staff attorney for the department.
Dorius said Brown-Forman had "been very gracious" when told its ad was illegal.
Welch, the publisher, said the episode had no effect on another business arrangement. The Tribune prints a regional edition for USA Today -- one that, especially around Christmas holidays, has prominently featured liquor ads.

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(copyright: Editor & Publisher May 8, 2000)