Liquor advertising revisited

Statistician friend Rick criticized my earlier post on liquor advertising, noting that there's more to the problem than just the portion of minors reading a particular magazine.

I agree, but that's because we both have tunnel vision. I argued that the liquor marketing rule - of no ads in publications where >30% of readers are under 21 - was pathetic because 30% of people are under 21.

Rick argued that you have to take into account the portion of magazine readers who are minors:

This is true, but relevant only if the under-21 crowd reads magazines at the same rate as the over-21s.

If, say, 85% of all magazine readers are over 21, then requiring 70% of-age readership is a weak criteria and should be criticized.

If only 50% of magazine readers are over 21, then 70% is excellent (because a magazine with 70% of-age readership is much higher than average)

We're both wrong. Consider this: Publication A might have 65% readership by over-21s but total circulation of 10,000 and publication B might have 90% readership by over-21s and 1 million circulation. The decision to not advertise in A protects 3500 kids whereas the decision to advertise in B gets 100,000 of them.

In that case, it doesn't matter what portion of the magazine reading population are minors (or whether the ad threshold is 70% or 85%). The point is that the threshold isn't designed to minimize the number of minors exposed to liquor advertising. They'd have more luck banning liquor advertising based on circulation than on the demographics of readers.

There's probably 1000 other ways to crunch the numbers, but I stick with my first point: liquor advertisers aren't doing very much to ensure that a disproportionate share of their advertising hits the over 21 market.

Have booze, won't travel

The Minneapolis Airport has recently been struggling with an issue brought to them by travelers - Muslim cabbies refusing rides to people carrying (even unopened) liquor, citing their religious beliefs. This is similar to an issue arising a few months back, where national attention was focused on pharmacists who would refuse to dispense the morning-after pill, citing their Christian religious beliefs.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Muslim cabbie issue was that the Metropolitan Airports Commission was negotiating with cabbies and considering a special light for the cabs to indicate drivers who would refuse service to booze carriers. In other words, they were ready to accomodate this service distinction.

In an email listserv I read, one respondent found this idea a slippery slope:

Still, this seems to me to set a very troubling precedent. Cabbies are licensed to provide a secular public service that, in my mind, has nothing to do with their personal religious belief systems. If they are allowed to discriminate based upon their personal belief systems, where does it end? A special light for cabbies who refuse to transport scantily clad women? Another light for cabbies who refuse to transport women and men traveling together (unless of course they show proof of marriage)? I recall an incident reported in the local press a few years ago in which a Mpls cabbie kicked a gay couple out of his cab (which I believe violates the city's anti-discrimination ordinances). Perhaps local cab drivers and/or local Muslim leaders can chime in and educate the rest of us on this issue: What are the limits here? When should a cabbie's personal beliefs influence whom he chooses as a client?

The challenge is that both pharmaceuticals and cab rides fall under the purview of state licensing and therefore have a modicum of state oversight. I would think that nondiscrimination clauses should apply in both cases and that these cabbies should not be able to prohibit riders who are carrying legal and unopened substances.

After all, it really comes down to an issue of religion in a secular society - your freedom to practice extends right up until you force your beliefs on me. Christian fundies, take note.