Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 27, 1995                   TAG: 9504270064
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

BEERMAKER JUST SAYS NO TO UNDERAGE STUDY

A handful of shareholders brought the issue to the floor during the Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. annual meeting and won only 6.7 percent of the shares voted.

But increasing support for beer promotions that do not appeal to teen-agers was the chief goal, said Diana M. Conti, executive director of the California-based Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems.

Conti and a half-dozen other speakers urged about 1,000 other shareholders at the meeting to consider whether advertising and sports promotions for Budweiser and other beers imply to teens that it's OK to drink.

``We have to teach our children how to protect themselves against these kinds of ads,'' said the Rev. Alpha Estes Brown, pastor of the Brightwood Park United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. ``Your ads are everywhere.''

The proposal would have required the company to determine how much of its advertising reaches teen-agers and how much of its sales are made illegally to underage drinkers.

The Rev. Robert James Current of Novato United Methodist Church in Marin County, Calif., said, ``We've been in denial too long, first denying there is a problem, then denying we're part of the problem.''

But Anheuser-Busch executives said numerous studies have found that advertising doesn't influence underage drinking, which other studies show is on the decline.

Even a federal evaluation that concluded high school students consume 1.1 billion cans of beer a year indicated the students themselves say they aren't affected by beer ads, said Francine Katz, Anheuser-Busch's vice president of consumer awareness and education.