'WE AIN'T CAUSING ANY TROUBLE,' DRINKER SAYS

But police and Tenney Park neighbors claim rowdy drinking dominates the scene

Popping open another can of Busch beer in Tenney Park, LuAnne Littel says
the police and politicians should back off. ''We ain't causing any
trouble,'' Littel says, surrounded by a handful of animated friends sharing
a case of beer near the park's shelter along Johnson Street on Madison's
East Side.

Littel winces when asked if she's one of the so-called ''chronic
alcoholics'' city officials say have been causing so many problems in the
park this summer.

''Most of us have a job,'' Littel says, taking issue with the label.

''We're just friends having a good time,'' Bill Cull adds. ''If a cop comes
up, we sir 'em. We don't slur 'em.''

Two others in the group slowly dance out of time to a boom box, smiling but
appearing confused by a reporter's questions. Some loudly swap stories and
laugh. A few in tattered clothing sit somberly on picnic tables, clutching
beer cans and smoking cigarettes in the afternoon sun.

Police and residents who live around Tenney Park say rowdy drinkers have
largely taken over the 42-acre park that borders the Yahara River and Lake
Mendota.

City officials are considering a ban on alcohol in Tenney Park. They're
also targeting chronic drinking in the State Street area Downtown.

Ald. Tim Bruer, 14th District, who is president of the City Council and
head of the city's Alcohol License Review Committee, says police will
launch a sting operation in the coming weeks to crack down on liquor stores
that sell to patrons who are obviously drunk. Bruer also is exploring the
possibility of a law stopping sales to chronic alcoholics even when they're
sober.

''The nature of complaints and police calls related to alcohol consumption
are significantly more frequent and severe,'' Bruer says. ''It's
symptomatic of the tolerance and culture in Madison and Wisconsin where
binge drinking and alcohol-driven parties are a way of life. It appears to
be catching up to us on a number of different fronts.''

For example, alcohol abuse by UW-Madison students is another big concern,
Bruer says.

But chronic drunks, particularly those in Tenney Park, have garnered much
of the city's attention this summer.

Ald. Barbara Vedder, 2nd District, who represents the Tenney Park area,
supports a ban on alcohol there with certain exceptions for special events
in designated areas. Similar alcohol bans are in place at 11 of Madison's
more than 200 other parks.

Bans on alcohol in most areas of Brittingham and James Madison parks near
Downtown probably moved chronic drinkers to Tenney Park in recent years,
officials suspect.

To prevent another migration if drinking in Tenney is stopped, Vedder is
organizing a task force to study and recommend ways of addressing the
underlying problem of chronic drinking.

The Dane County Detoxification Center on Madison's South Side treated about
1,800 people a total of 3,200 times last year, program manager Melody
Music-Twilla says. Some chronic drunks are admitted more than a dozen times
a year against their will. The center medically monitors patients until
they're sober, provides counseling and tries to steer them into support
programs.

Music-Twilla doesn't think a ban on booze in Tenney Park or a crackdown on
liquor sales will have much effect on chronic drunks.

''You can ban it here or ban it there, but people are going to drink,'' she
says. ''If a person can't buy it, they're going to get someone to buy it
for them.''

Music-Twilla has seen intervention programs turn many people around. But a
drop in government funding has significantly reduced the presence of social
workers on State Street. Several social workers used to walk the length of
the street each day, making contact with and trying to help drunks.

Merrilee Pickett, a UW-Madison lecturer who studies alcohol abuse and
trains counselors, says many chronic drunks suffer from character
disorders, schizophrenia or depression. This makes helping them all the
more difficult, she says. A self-help group or counseling program that
seems to reach one person might fail miserably with another.

''I don't think any one thing is the answer,'' Pickett says. ''I firmly
believe we have to approach it in a variety of different ways.''

Pickett agrees that a ban on alcohol in Tenney Park combined with limits on
sales to known alcoholics Downtown won't do much to stop chronic drinking.

''But at some level, it might make the streets or the highways a little
safer,'' she says.

Limiting access to alcohol in Tenney Park also could improve the East Side
neighborhood around it, she suspects.

''Regardless of what's real or not, it's apparently the public perception
that Tenney Park is not safe,'' Pickett says. ''It doesn't matter if it is
or not people are avoiding it. That's not good for the community.''

While chronic drunks stick out on city streets and in parks, Pickett
believes they account for only a fraction of alcohol-related problems.
There are many intelligent, educated, employed people who drive drunk or
become violent after drinking and take a major toll on society.

''Some people don't want to go to Packers games because it's so
obnoxious,'' Pickett says. ''But that's more acceptable than the people
with red faces and varicose veins down in Tenney Park drinking beer.''

Views on ban mixed

City officials who surveyed residents around Tenney Park recently found
that 82 of 107 respondents favored an alcohol ban with certain exceptions
for special events. Two people wanted a total ban.

Opinions were mixed among a dozen park users who spoke to a reporter on a
recent Sunday afternoon.

''I don't drink much myself,'' said Fernando Oden of Madison, relaxing in
his truck near the Yahara River before heading to work. ''But if somebody
is fishing all afternoon and just minding their own business, I don't see
why they shouldn't be able to have a beer.''

At the same time, he's seen a few intoxicated people causing minor problems.

''I guess I wouldn't be against a ban if you could get a permit to have
company picnics or family reunions with beer or wine coolers in the
shelter,'' he says.

Rocking her infant daughter in a stroller inside the Tenney Park shelter,
Miluska Cleveland says a ban on alcohol is long overdue.

''If you want to drink, do it in your own yard. Do it in your own home,''
Cleveland says. ''It's best for the kids.''

A ban on alcohol in Tenney Park would follow the precedent of similar bans
elsewhere in the city. But Bruer's idea of enacting a new law prohibiting
liquor stores from selling alcohol to certain people deemed to be drunks
would probably spark a legal challenge on constitutional grounds, City
Attorney Eunice Gibson says.

Gibson recalls a Wisconsin law struck down by the United States Supreme
Court in 1971. The law allowed a Hartford police chief to post notices in
all liquor stores saying a certain woman in town should not be sold or
given any beer or booze.

The woman sued, and the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, agreed that the woman
had been unconstitutional denied due process. The notices were stigmatizing
and hurt her reputation.

''But you can't say the outcome would be the same today,'' Gibson says of
the court's decision. ''There are statutes that didn't exist in those days.''

Bruer notes that certain landlords can legally refuse to rent to people
with a history of violence or drug and alcohol problems. Likewise, he says,
liquor stores should be able to refuse alcohol to patrons with similar,
well-documented problems of abuse.

''I realize we would have to walk a very thin line'' to not unfairly
discriminate, Bruer says.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski