BROWN COUNTY (NBC 26) — Information collected by Brown County's Place of Last Drink Study shows fewer people are driving drunk.
"I think it has to do with people being more responsible, knowing the awareness," Hagemeister Park general manager David Abbott said. "Our bartenders are trained to be more responsible, and I think everybody else is training their bartender staff to be more responsible, knowing when to cut people off or when to call for a SafeRide for them."
In the fourth quarter of 2019 at Hagemeister Park, not a single driver left the bar and then got an OWI, according to the Place of Last Drink Study.
"The Place of Last Drink Study is really a big component for us for the awareness part," Brown County Sheriff's Office Captain Dan Sandberg said.
The study is meant to identify where OWI offenders had their last drink before they started driving. If a certain establishment shows up again and again, law enforcement can go to that location, and talk it over. Experts said it's worked. This year, law enforcement is thinking bigger.
"It's a really big project to try to work with 400 establishments, but if you break it down into districts, it makes it a lot easier to go and work with that area and try to get some changes," Sandberg said.
For example, in the fourth quarter of 2019, OWI offenders said they came from the Broadway District 13 times. That's the most of any district. That could mean more education or more enforcement directed there.
"We're hoping that we can do some brainstorming this first half of the year and try and figure out some ways on how we can work in those district areas," Sandberg said.
