Federal judge hears campus paper's case for overturning ban on alcohol ads

The Associated Press

04.29.99

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	Brett Taylor, news editor at The Pitt News, University of Pittsburgh student newspaper, looks over alchohol-related ads that have appeared in other publications distributed on campus.

PITTSBURGH — By banning school newspapers from selling advertisements for alcohol, a state law effectively curtails the amount of news they can publish, attorneys for a campus newspaper argued yesterday before a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge William Standish heard a day of testimony on the Pennsylvania law, enacted in 1997. The judge then asked attorneys to submit written arguments and said he would rule next month.

The Pitt News, a student newspaper at the University of Pittsburgh, sued to overturn the law. The paper, aided by the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the law violated its First Amendment rights.

Under the law, publications related to educational institutions — including newspapers, yearbooks and sports programs — cannot run advertisements that list the prices of, or otherwise promote, alcoholic drinks. The same sanctions apply to college radio and television stations.

The law does allow ads that give the names and addresses of bars, clubs and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Attorneys for the newspaper appeared before Standish seeking an injunction that would temporarily set aside the law and allow the paper to sell advertising.

"We're not trying to promote underage drinking or alcohol problems. But if the state is going to combat underage drinking, they should do it without restricting our rights," said Hal Turner, editor of The Pitt News.

Standish told attorneys to submit briefs by May 12, and said he would rule after that.

The paper also said the law restricted the amount of news it could publish because it eliminated a source of revenue. The paper's business officials said they had lost $17,500 in revenue since the law went into effect.

"We've always been able to publish as much news as we can handle, and this year our wings really felt clipped. The paper is much smaller this year," Turner said.

The paper also presented as a witness Jon Nelson, an economics professor at Penn State University, who said his studies of alcohol advertisements show no connection between ads and increased consumption.

"Advertising has an impact on brand identification and brand allegiance," said ACLU attorney Witold Walczak. "It's a battle over whose beer you're going to drink, but there's no evidence to show a correlation between advertising and consumption."

Attorneys for the state urged Standish to leave the law in place, arguing that it was an effort to combat excess drinking on college campuses.