UPHOLDING TRADITION OF GETTING PIE-EYED.

Byline: Carol Cunningham Local View

AS the holidays swing into full gear, there's a billboard on Roscoe Boulevard reminding us to have the right holiday spirits. NBC wants to make sure we'll have those spirits all year long.

I refer, of course, not to peace, charity, kindness and hope, but to beer and scotch. NBC network television will be airing ads for hard liquor soon, in addition to the beer and wine ads it already carries.

The billboard in question is outside the Anheuser-Busch brewery at Roscoe and Sepulveda boulevards. It shows a man wearing a knit Budweiser cap, getting cozy with a couple of smirking Clydesdale horses next to a giant can of beer and the phrase, ``An American Holiday Tradition.''

As one of the millions of Americans who grew up with the holiday tradition of family drinking and its attendant tears and regrets, I'm not sure it's a tradition we need to encourage.

Who can forget those days of waiting for the other shoe to drop? It's not a question of ``if,'' but ``when''? When will Mom start crying? When will Dad start yelling? When will the old arguments start all over again? It's the same year after year. It's a holiday tradition.

In too many families, grown offspring return year after year with their young children and renew the cycle of grief, demanding to know why they were rejected, abused, neglected, and left without a dime when they needed it most during the last year. Soon enough, the arguments turn into accusations of ``You never! ...'' and ``You always! ...''

CNN reports that the American Medical Association has called NBC's decision ``irresponsible and greedy.''

But NBC says it is acting responsibly because it plans to air commercials for hard liquor after 9 p.m. However, it will consider airing them at other times if 85 percent of a show's audience is at least 21 years old. That would mean as much as 15 percent of the perceived audience would be under the legal drinking age. In a hit show, that could mean millions of under-age viewers would be watching.

For every four hard liquor ads that run on NBC, one public service message will be aired, paid for by the same advertiser. Gee, do you think there might be a conflict of interest there?

Most of us can recite the tag lines from all sorts of regular ads: ``just do it''; ``you deserve a break today.''

How many public service slogans can you remember? OK, there's ``This is your brain on drugs.'' And? ...

Is there a correlation between holiday drinking and tragedy? Just ask the 600,000 Americans injured each year in drunk driving accidents. Just ask the California Highway Patrol officers who are routinely asked to give up holiday time with their families.

Just ask MADD. Mothers Against Drunk Drivers reports that every year hundreds of thousands of families are torn apart by drunk driving deaths, injuries and arrests. Last year, 40 percent of all people killed in car crashes in the U.S. and Canada were killed because someone in one of the vehicles involved had been drinking.

Philo T. Farnsworth, who won the patent as the inventor of television, said of its influence, ``Television is a gift from God, and He will hold those who utilize this divine instrument accountable to Him.''

Advertisers do not pay millions to get products in front of the public in order to ``be responsible.'' They do it because ``advertising doesn't cost, it pays.''

It's not about responsibility. It's not about tradition. It's about making money. This holiday, you're being encouraged to share a few six-packs with the family. Next year, it'll be vodka, gin or Scotch.

Or you could just bring peace, charity, kindness and hope, and create your own American holiday tradition.