Alcohol

George Huguely IV, whose namesake son was convicted of second-degree murder this winter for beating University of Virginia student Yeardley Love to death while in a drunken rage, pleaded guilty Tuesday to driving while impaired by alcohol, according to Montgomery County prosecutors. Huguely IV, who lives in Potomac, was sentenced to probation in Rockville district court, spokesman Seth Zucker said in an email. It appears to be the elder Huguely's first conviction for drunk driving, according to Maryland's online court records.

Outside West Baltimore's Penn Station Liquors, folks say the store is no place for children. Only a block away from Westside Elementary School, Penn Station is one of four liquor businesses within feet of each other on North Fulton Street. Youngsters sometimes wander in to buy candy, soda and chips - stocked next to the alcohol, flavored cigars and sex pills. "Kids don't belong here," says Pauline White, 50, who lives nearby. "When people start drinking, they get crazy. " On Monday, the City Council overwhelmingly voted to pass a bill, championed by freshman Councilman Nick Mosby, to make it illegal for liquor stores to sell anything to minors, including seemingly innocuous goods such as snacks or T-shirts.

A 7-year-old Waldorf girl was killed and three adults were injured in a three-car, alcohol-involved collision in Charles County, according to Maryland State Police. State troopers from the La Plata barrack first responded to northbound Route 210 near Lewis Place about 3:20 p.m. for reports of a motor vehicle accident. The girl, Jan-nae Alicia Woodard, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. An investigation showed that Jackson Tutt, 73, of Fort Washington, was driving a green 1995 Chevrolet Tahoe south on Route 210 when the vehicle passed through the median of the roadway and into the left side of a gray 2007 Chevrolet Trailblazer being driven north on the road by William Green, 60, of Indian Head.

City health officials want to strip the licenses of dozens of liquor stores in predominantly poor Baltimore neighborhoods, linking the outlets to higher levels of violent crime. Health and planning officials said Friday that they will use a citywide rezoning effort to force some stores that don't conform to current law to move, shut or change their offerings. "Clearly alcohol and violence are two of the major issues affecting the city," said Dr. Oxiris Barbot, city health commissioner, who is helping to lead the effort against the stores.

Regarding Maryvale Preparatory School's mandatory alcohol education program ("At Maryvale Prep, alcohol education comes before prom," May 24), anything that can help make sure these seniors are safe now that they are almost in college is a good thing. College parties will present them with increased peer pressure and risky activities, but knowing what choices are the right choices is powerful knowledge for a teen. That could make the difference in putting them in a situation where they or a friend gets injured or in trouble.

It was April 1978, and singer Judy Collins hadn't had an inspirational thought in four years. She'd been an alcoholic for 23 years — "and I was proud of it. " She'd toured and made records, but she knew the ride she was on — her father had been an alcoholic — and "as long as I was on it, I was going to enjoy every minute. " But in those last four years, she'd been drinking around the clock. Three-black-outs-a-day drinking. Jelly-jars-full-of-booze drinking. So her accountant and her assistant, the only people who would have anything to do with this version of Judy Collins, put her on a plane to a rehab facility.

They have asked a date, found the perfect dress, matched the shoes and made the appointments for hair and nails. But the seniors and their parents at Maryvale Preparatory School must add one more thing to their to-do list before prom night Friday. The all-girls Catholic school in Brooklandville established an unusual pre-prom tradition 26 years ago, when it made an alcohol education program mandatory for students and parents. "Because of all the things going on related to drinking, including a horrific accident, we decided then that we had to do something," said Sister Shawn Marie Maguire, who has overseen the school since 1981.

If local pharmacists could write the regulations, Marylanders probably wouldn't ever have been allowed to get their prescriptions filled at chain stores like Walgreens and Rite-Aid. Independent video stores probably would have liked to outlaw Blockbuster, just as small bookstore owners probably would have been just as happy if the state had a ban on Barnes & Noble. (For that matter, Blockbuster might like an injunction against Netflix and Barnes & Noble on Amazon.com.) And most of all, Main Street merchants everywhere would probably love a world where Walmart was illegal.

Alcohol is far too attractive and easy to obtain online for kids, says Dr. David Jernigan, director of Johns Hopkins' Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth . Jernigan wrote a commentary for the Archive of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine to accompany a new report from researchers at the University of North Carolina that documents how easy it is for underage drinkers to make purchases on the Internet. While it's long been known kids could buy alcohol online, this is believed to be the first peer-reviewed study to look at age verification practices of online vendors.

Stop by the Red Rooster, a 10-seat joint just off Main Street in this rural community an hour west of Baltimore, and you can order a burger, some barbecue or the fried chicken that some locals claim is the best on the East Coast. But don't bother asking for a beer to wash it down with. The Red Rooster, like every other business here, is barred by law from selling alcoholic beverages. And that suits co-owner Kevin Miller just fine. The lifelong Damascus resident says the local ban has helped preserve the quiet character of this unincorporated corner of northern Montgomery County.