Drinking Age

A bill to raise the Massachusetts drinking age to 21 moved closer to passage when the motion reached a second hearing on the State House floor yesterday.

The bill had been purposely stalled in a "study pack" by the Committee on Government Regulations, which tried to attach to it several unpopular bills. But the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday released it independently, with a favorable recommendation.

The bill will probably come up for debate on the House floor within the week after being checked for constitutionality and form by the Committee on Bills in the Third Reading, according to a committee spokesman. It will then require one more vote before being sent to the Senate.

In 1973 the state drinking age dropped from 21 to 18, but in 1979 former Gov. Edward J. King signed an act raising the age to 20. Gov. Michael S. Dukakis reportedly says he will sign the bill if it is passed by the legislature, despite vetoes of similar bills during his previous term.

House Speaker Thomas W. McGee has reportedly recommended a "grandfather clause" postponing the effect of the bill for one year, so that people now 20 would not lose their drinking privileges. Should the bill go through in its present form, some 85 percent of Harvard undergraduates would be unable to drink legally.

A spokesman for the American Automobile Association (AAA) which has endorsed the bill, claims the measure will save lives. In 1982, 10 fatal accidents in Massachusetts were caused by drunk drivers aged 20, according to an AAA spokesman who said, "It's good legislation with lots of things in favor of it and nothing against it."

However, Rep. William Galvin, chairman of the committee which originally delayed the measure, opposed the bill as "neither significant nor effective."

Galvin supported raising the age from 18 to 20 because it deterred high school students from obtaining alcohol. But he called a further raise "arbitrary and punitive."