In the early morning hours of Sunday, June 28, four teenagers were killed as a result of a two-car collision on Old Las Vegas Highway. Sixteen-year-old Avree Koffman — the driver of the car carrying the other teen victims — is recovering from multiple injuries at an Albuquerque hospital. Scott Owens — the 27-year-old driver of the second car involved in the collision — stands accused of four counts of vehicular homicide and one count of causing great bodily injury. It was recently reported that, hours after the crash, Owens' blood-alcohol content registered at twice the legal limit (0.16). It also was reported that Koffman had no alcohol in her system at the time of the collision.

On Monday morning, June 29, I stood quietly at the back of the Santa Fe Preparatory School auditorium during a public memorial for those who died, trying to process both the sadness and the strength I was witnessing. I'm still working on that. A temporary memorial for the victims was erected at Cathedral Park, and a permanent home for the memorial is being discussed.

One of the early targets of public outrage following a tragedy like this is the local restaurant and bar industry. After a report was filed with the Department of Public Safety allegedly placing Owens at The Matador (a downtown bar) just hours before the accident, a search warrant was issued to follow up on the lead with Matador owners Cesar Fort and Francisco "Frank" Garriga. Fort and Garriga spoke to me by phone recently about the incident, and wanted to put to rest any rumors about the bar's involvement in the Owens case.

According to Fort, the pair spoke to multiple officers at length, including a technician assigned to gather physical evidence and an investigator from the NMDPS Special Investigations Unit. "Scott Owens was not in our bar at all that night," Fort said. "After the officers spoke to us, they were almost apologetic. They said we weren't a focus of the investigation, but that every lead had to be followed. They looked for anything to tie Owens to this establishment, which was their job after all, and they didn't find a thing."

The owners strictly monitor their patrons, Fort said. "We can always afford to lose the business by refusing to over-serve a customer. Even though we've had a spotless record, we still understand the serious consequences if someone does over-serve. We have a solid reputation for cutting people off. It's the number-one complaint I hear about the Matador: that we're too strict with our serving policy," Fort added. "Instead of just throwing people out on the street like a lot of bars do — because servers and owners are afraid they'll be nailed for over-serving, even if they didn't serve someone at all — we find out where they're going, who they're with and if they have a sober ride." The Matador owners have a good system set up with Evangelo's, and they're working on setting one up with a new bar neighbor, Milagro 139. "If a guy is cut off here," Fort said, "I'm on the cell phone to the other bars saying, 'Don't serve that guy if he comes in,' and often, they return the favor."

Fort, a veteran barman from Washington, D.C., who believes that being able to forge effective relationships with state alcohol investigators is a fairly recent development in Santa Fe, wants patrons and others following the DUI issue to know that part of changing the culture of drinking and driving is broadening positive exchanges between law enforcement and purveyors of alcohol.

"D.C. has had similar rules and criteria regarding alcohol sales and server licensing in place for some time now," Fort said. "The difference there is, instead of coming in with the attitude of 'Hey, we know you're breaking the law, and we're gonna get you — who did you over-serve tonight?,' alcohol investigators say, 'What can we do together to solve this issue logically and fairly?' It's going to take a while, but I think that's starting to happen here," he added. "You can't spend all your time being afraid of being part of the problem. You have to be willing to be a part of the solution. It's the only way bar owners and servers are going to be trusted and respected by the people who actually make the rules."

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One of the things often overlookled in our local debate about drunken driving and issues of culpability and responsibility is the mandatory certification of every alcohol server in New Mexico. According to the New Mexico Alcohol Server Education Act, anyone who "serves alcohol, sells alcohol, or manages a liquor-licensed premise in New Mexico must become Alcohol Server Certified." The state-approved alcohol-server education class, which has been mandatory since the mid-'90s, (see www.asts-nm.com for details) currently costs $25 per server, and servers must be re-certified every five years. Some restaurants will pick up the tab for their servers to become certified. Is it time to revamp the certification cirriculum? And is it time to share it — free-of-charge — with students, teachers, and parents?

Contact Rob DeWalt at 986-3039 or rdewalt@sfnewmexican.com.