Safety Issue Could Turn Trains Dry
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Commuters who like to take the edge off with alcohol at the end of the day may soon have to wait until they’re home to do so.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority is considering prohibiting alcohol sales on Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trains and station platforms. At a board meeting yesterday, an MTA board member, Mitchell Pally, called drinking aboard trains a safety issue.
“They can have as many beers as they want as soon as they get home,” Mr. Pally said. “I would prefer we don’t let anyone drink alcohol on the train. If we’re not ready to go that far … the least we can do is not make it easy for people to do it, which is, don’t sell it.”
The Long Island Rail Road sells beer, wine, and hard alcohol year-round at 12 bar carts on platforms at Pennyslvania Station, Flatbush Avenue, and Jamaica during weekday rush hours. Metro-North owns bar carts on its platforms at Grand Central Terminal, and has nine bar cars on its New Haven line.
The Long Island Rail Road bulks up its regular alcohol reserve with 10 special service attendants who serve the Hamptons reserve cars during the summer.
Alcohol sales aboard the Long Island Rail Road total $350,000 a year. The chairman of the Long Island Committee, David Mack, said he would look into the matter and present it to the full MTA board. The figures for alcohol sales aboard Metro-North trains were not made available yesterday.
The safety issue, according to Mr. Pally, is drunk driving when tipsy passengers head to their homes from train stations. Long Island Rail Road has been selling alcohol on platforms and aboard trains since the 1950s, and Metro-North has been serving it since 1976. No car accidents directly related to onboard drinking have been reported, and bartenders on the trains are not allowed to sell alcohol to passengers who seem to them to be inebriated.
Some Metro-North officials are wondering how banning their own agency from selling alcohol would curb drinking in transit, when passengers would still be able to purchase alcohol at any number of restaurants and stores at Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal.
“To ban it is unenforceable,” a spokeswoman for Metro-North, Marjorie Anders, said. “People like to be able to get something on the run. They can get it anywhere in Grand Central. Our bar carts are a convenience.”