Germans Drinking Beer - What Will Happen Next?

The headline is a little shady – it should have been wife of the incoming chairman of DaimlerChrysler AG fined for beer bash. Otherwise it’s not news. Teenagers getting ripped and driving is a bad deal. Question is, whether a 21 year drinking age etc is the way to stop it.

BrooklynDodger thinks the drinking age should be 18, and that punishment for party parents should be the same as dram shop operators. Other accounts of this incident note that the drinking age for beer in Germany is 16.

[lThe caption puts Zetsche in the middle of this bibulous trio at the Concouse D'Elegance, but BD from other evidence thinks it's the lady on the right. Nobody with a hat like that would ever be convicted.]

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Host of teen beer bash to be fined
DCX exec's wife threw June party
October 4, 2005
BY ALEX P. KELLOGG and FRANK WITSIL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

A judge is expected to give Gisela Zetsche, the wife of the incoming chairman of DaimlerChrysler AG, a slap on the wrist Wednesday for holding what police say was a loud, late-night party in June at her Bloomfield Township home, where rowdy teens chugged beer, liquor and threw things at passing cars.

However, critics and parents say, Zetsche's sentence -- a fine of $500 or less -- is too lenient.

Had Bloomfield Township police taken the case to Oakland County prosecutors, Zetsche could have been arrested and charged with providing alcohol to a minor, a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and as many as 60 days in jail, said Jim Halushka, director of warrants and investigations for the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office