A bill easing responsibility on people who sell alcohol to minors and one that would prohibit alcohol sales at gas stations appear stalled. But they point to the incongruent approaches legislators seem to bring to DWI issues year after year.

DWI prevention advocates — including the family of some Las Vegas, N.M., DWI victims — were angered at San Jose Democrat Sen. Phil Griego's Senate Bill 230, which would change the wording in state law to only penalize people who "know" they are selling alcohol to minors. The current law penalizes anyone who knows "or has reason to know" they are selling alcohol to a minor.

Ray Collins Jr., a family member of the two adults and three youths killed by a DWI driver in a head-on collision near Santa Fe in 2006, felt betrayed. Collins said in a recent e-mail to Griego: "It was you who wrote an article and put in numerous newspapers last year about the mistakes you made in the past with alcohol and drinking and driving; it was you who stood by me and my family when you said that you would support our efforts of making New Mexico a safer place, and now it is you doing a complete 180."

The Santa Fe Underage Drinking Prevention Alliance said the bill would let alcohol servers off the hook. "The question is why would a server not know they are serving or selling to an underage customer if they are required to ask for identification?" the group wrote in a public statement.

Griego, who has been an advocate for DWI prevention measures in the last couple of years, did not respond to messages left at his office over the last three days.

SB 230 ended in a tie vote Friday by the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee, which can revive the bill.

Friday had also been declared DWI Awareness Day by the Legislature, acknowledging the 199 people who died in alcohol-related crashes in 2006 in New Mexico, the 3,000 car crashes related to alcohol in the state each year and the 20,000 drunken drivers arrested each year.

Meanwhile, Griego's San Miguel County colleague in the House, Rep. Richard D. Vigil, D-Ribera, sponsored House Bill 359, which would keep people from pulling into a gas station convenience stores and buying brandy, whisky, rum or gin and other alcoholic beverages. The bill would allow gas stations that hold liquor licenses to renew the license as inactive until 2010, giving time to sell, lease or transfer the licenses. That bill hasn't been heard by a committee yet.

The Department of Public Safety noted the bill would help investigations and reduce the availability of alcohol to minors. It would also alleviate the responsibility on convenience store clerks for having to decide whether customers are too drunk to buy more booze, the department said.

But the bill might not have moved an inch because of poor wording. The Attorney General's Office said the bill could be open to a court challenge and suggested the law could be changed to directly prohibit the sale of liquor at convenience stores.

Three other DWI-related bills are in various stages:

• The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday passed SB 197, which would count prior DWI convictions as a felony toward sentencing under the state's habitual-offender law. The state Supreme Court ruled 11 years ago that a felony DWI conviction doesn't count as a prior felony under the law. Changing that would mean habitual DWI offenders could receive tougher sentences. The bill moves to the Senate floor for a vote.

• The House voted 61-0 to approve HB 100, which stiffens penalties for people who try to disengage or tamper with an ignition interlock. The bill goes now to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

• Rep. Vigil, is sponsoring another bill, HB 357, that would jack up the price of excise taxes from $1.60 to $4.98 for a liter of liquor and from 46 cents to $1.46 for a bottle of wine. The Department of Finance and Administration figures the price hike would sharply reduce liquor sales while still generating $98 million in revenue, with $57 million going to the general fund and the balance into DWI prevention programs.

Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.