Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 11, 1993 TAG: 9306110335
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Even if they complain they're too tight," the guard said, make sure the bright pink bands signifying the wearer is at least 21 can't be slipped off.
According to many of the hundreds who showed up for the Valleypointe After Hours music fest Thursday night, security has always been tight around the beer at the weekly Easter Seals fund-raiser.
Without the bright pink wrist-band and an ink handstamp, those attending the concerts cannot buy tickets for draft brews.
The policy had never been an issue, apparently, until a Roanoke Valley man crashed his car into another one last Thursday night, killing a 9-year-old boy.
John Walton Stover, 20, wasn't old enough to legally purchase beer. A police record of a search of his car noted that several beer cans were found in the vehicle. And in a statement to police after the accident, Stover said he had been drinking at Valleypointe earlier in the evening.
The statement prompted state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board officials to launch an investigation this week into whether minors or intoxicated people were served beer at the weekly concerts.
Valleypointe After Hours regular Tony Dalton, 26, said Thursday he is confident Stover "didn't drink here."
Beer at Valleypointe is served only in cups, with a limit of four per evening. As concertgoers purchase tickets for beer, an indelible mark is placed on their wristbands for each cup purchased.
Ramon Diaz, 31, joined in Dalton's appraisal that it would be almost impossible for someone under 21 to get beer at the concert site.
They and their buddies - Jeff Hodges, 24, Andrew Morton, 31, and William Howard, 30 - said their concern was that the publicity about the beer sales might jeopardize the future of the After Hours concerts.
"This is a good clean place," Hodges said. There is good music, good beer, a good place to socialize, and it's the best place in town to meet women, the men said.
"There is nothing to do in Roanoke now," except the After Hours concerts, Diaz said. "If they give this a bad name," he said, he feared its future would be in doubt.
Easter Seals Society spokeswoman Susan Knight said she doesn't believe the program - which raised more than $100,000 for her agency last year - is in danger.
"We've had a good event for four years now," she said. "We go over and above the requirements" for serving alcoholic beverages.
"To us, it seems unfair" to link the "tragic death" of Dustin Washburn in any way to the Valleypointe program, she said.
Melvin Jordan, who recently returned to the Roanoke Valley after living in Connecticut for many years, credited the strong security at the concerts with preventing alcohol abuse.
He and companion Joyce Jennings rave about the music and have been to every Valleypointe concert this year.
They echoed the doubt that anyone under 21 would be served alcohol there.
The Roanoke Valley concerts were modeled after a similar program in Richmond, said Easter Seals board member John Hudgins.
All the profit from the 15 concerts goes to local Easter Seals programs for the disabled, with the largest portion earmarked for Camp Easter Seal in Craig County, Hudgins said.
Volunteers take the $3 admission, check IDs, sell beer tickets, run the concession stands. The only expenses are for security, the wholesale cost of the beer and the cost of food and drinks at the concession stands.
Concertgoers Thursday ranged from toddlers to retirees, but the biggest age group appeared to be their 20s and 30s - "the downtown dating crowd," Hudgins said.
There were a few ties in the crowd, but Hudgins said regulars usually go home after work and change into shorts and casual shirts.
"People can come here, bring their kids, and feel good about it," he said.
He and his wife even bring their own grandchildren.
by CNB