Controversy over “4.0 Blood Alcohol Content” drink special ad
WDAY 6
By Aaron Burner
November 11, 2015
Fargo, ND (WDAY TV)-An ad for a drink special at a Fargo bar is stirring up controversy.
An advertisement for a college night all-you-can-drink special at the Bomb Shelter reads, “Graduate with a 4.0 Blood Alcohol Content.”
And some say – creative or not – it’s promoting dangerous behavior.
F-M Ambulance Operations Manager Don Martin says for someone who averages a couple drinks a day, even a .30 blood alcohol content could be deadly.
He says 4.0 could probably kill an elephant and that ads promoting excessive drinking like this are unhealthy.
Don Martin/F-M Ambulance Operations Manager: “That’s going to create, you know, when everyone’s going to drink as much as they possibly can, your body can’t metabolize it, so your body’s reaction is to expel it.”
The $7 all-you-can-drink ad from September 29th has the same message on Facebook and Twitter, followed by, “We love college night.”
Some voiced their opinion of a recent sponsored version on Facebook, calling it “messed up,” and saying it “promotes drinking to death.”
NDSU graduate student Faraad Armwood says it’s dangerous to promote excessive drinking to college students.
Faraad Armwood/NDSU Graduate Student: “They have the idea that, you know, I’m away from home so I can pretty much do anything I want. So it’s definitely a bad advertisement I think for them.”
He says he understands how the ad was supposed to be funny, but that it goes too far.
Armwood: “You want to have little advertising type funny things but this is probably over that.”
Martin says if you plan on drinking a lot, make sure you have a driver, and someone who can keep an eye on you.
He says if someone passes out and you can’t wake them up, you should call 911.
Martin: “Their ability to move, their reaction time, their speech, all that stuff starts to become depressed to the point where it starts to depress your ability to breathe and to continue breathing, or holding your airway open so in the event that you vomit, you could choke on your own vomit.”
Bomb Shelter management says it was a joke and that they’ve taken down the ads.