Proposed Bill Would Allow 14-Year-Olds to Serve Hard Alcohol in Wisconsin; Lawmakers Claim Its ‘Unconscionable’

Wisconsin legislators remain starkly divided on a new serving age bill. (AP Photo/Scott Bauer, File)

Under a recently proposed bill, fourteen-year-olds in Wisconsin may soon be able to serve hard alcohol in bars and restaurants across the state.

The bill’s proponents, Republican lawmakers Rob Stafsholt and Chanz Green, claim that the current age limit “causes workforce issues due to an establishment’s underage employees only being able to do part of their job.” As the proposal inches closer to Senate, a debate has been ignited within Wisconsin surrounding the state’s responsibility to uphold ethics in the face of looming economic trends.

Despite the ubiquity of “21 plus” across the nation, drinking and serving ages are determined entirely on a state-by-state basis.

Some have decided to tweak the law in small ways. Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota permit a drinking age of 18 for 3.2% ABV beer, while 19 states including Texas, Virginia, and Ohio allow the “family exception” for at-home consumption.

Most hover around an 18-year-old serving age, though states like Maine and West Virginia have reduced it to 17 and 16 respectively. Were the new bill to pass, Wisconsin would have the lowest serving age in the country by three years.

Though these issues are often lumped together in the public discourse, each has starkly different implications.

Debates surrounding the drinking age usually center around a handful of well-established talking points: creating a safer drinking environment, increasing education and reducing drunk driving incidents. Lowering the serving age, on the other hand, is all about increasing the workforce.

As of 2022, Wisconsin faced a shortage of about 140,000 workers across the trucking, nursing and service industries. Critics of the serving age bill think that the solution is being taken a step too far, opening up a dangerous risk for sexual harassment and toxic workplace dynamics.

“I can’t believe that we’re even having this conversation,” said Ryan Clancy, a Democratic state legislator who represents Milwaukee. “The idea that we would expose Wisconsin’s children to harassment through this is just unconscionable. It’s not only an erosion of labor, but our willingness to protect our kids.”

Recently proposed bills in Iowa, Minnesota and Arkansas have sought to relax child labor protections across the construction and meatpacking industries. Depending on the fate of Wisconsin’s latest proposal, lowering the serving age may soon become the next frontier for eager lawmakers.

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