Sobering Changes for MADD

Into her flock, Tina Pasco each week welcomes at least one more angry victim. Another mother grieving for a child lost to a drunk driver. One more mother determined to see justice.

Meeting many out-of-towners at the airport, shepherding them around town in her own car, she has guided thousands of mothers, sisters, uncles and cousins of drunk-driving casualties through the emotional labyrinth of the Los Angeles court system.

A former housewife who lost her sister to a drunk motorist 12 years ago, Pasco learned firsthand how to harness her anger to follow the driver’s court case for a punishment that was swift and fair. Since then, she has shown others the way as the victim services director for Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.

But Pasco’s sobering mission could be in jeopardy.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which once made national headlines with its aggressive grass-roots campaign against alcohol-impaired drivers, is retrenching in Los Angeles.

Citing lackluster donations, and still reeling from the loss of its Van Nuys headquarters in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the group last month laid off three full-time workers.

Now it’s just Pasco and one part-timer to serve the car capital of the nation, a city with the dubious distinction of leading the entire country in automobile accidents per capita.

Said local MADD chapter President Mark Robinson: “A Los Angeles without MADD would be like Fargo, N.D., finding out it had no boots to get them through the winter.”

As the new year approached, MADD’s local chapter shut down its main North Hollywood office for a few days--leaving only a recording to remind revelers to call a cab.

Organizers have tried to remain upbeat. The sluggish economy, they say, has dried up donations, siphoning off the lifeblood of philanthropy that had turned MADD into one of the country’s most powerful public service campaigns since it was founded in 1980.

Robinson and fellow MADD officials in the organization’s headquarters in Dallas point out that many programs are still alive and well. In one such program, convicted drunk drivers are ordered by judges to attend MADD-sponsored seminars at which the families of alcohol-related crash victims describe alcohol’s impact on their lives.

Officials emphasize that the group will keep open two donated offices in North Hollywood and West Los Angeles. They will be staffed by a pool of 50 volunteers.

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But privately, MADD organizers acknowledge the group that has become synonymous with the phrase “Don’t Drink and Drive”--and has been instrumental in helping to reduce alcohol-related deaths on the nation’s highways by 40% since 1980--may have become a victim of its own success.

In the fiscal year ending June 1995, contributions fell nationwide to $41.2 million, down from $47.7 million the previous year.

The local picture is even more disheartening: The Los Angeles chapter that had little trouble raising $1.5 million in annual contributions 10 years ago mustered less than $100,000 in 1994, an official for the organization said.

“We’ve taken a big hit, that’s for sure, but ask local retailers what kind of business they’ve done recently,” Robinson said. “They got killed, just like us. Nobody’s spending money.”

MADD organizers compete with more than 2,700 nonprofit organizations in Southern California. Many, such as the drive for a cure for AIDS, are considered to be more glitzy than MADD.

Said Robinson: “Unlike some charities, we don’t have Liz Taylor and Elton John showing up at our fund-raisers.”

MADD suffers from a public-relations problem. Robinson and other officials believe that would-be contributors assume the group to be so large that it doesn’t need their donation check. They say others wrongly guess that MADD is government-supported.

Robinson acknowledges the group has lost control of its own enormously successful “Don’t Drink and Drive” campaign slogan. He said it is now used with impunity by other businesses in magazine and billboard advertisements.

The result: MADD is mad.

“It’s beyond disappointing,” Robinson said. “I don’t know whether people no longer see the urgency in our message or they consider us to be a bunch of blue-haired old ladies sitting around telling people not to have fun. . . .

“Well, I’m here to tell you that perception is wrong. We’re a charity organization. If people don’t put their money where their mouth is, how can we expect to keep our doors open?”

Still, there have also been signs of internal strife at MADD.

Several former employees complained to the Registry of Charitable Trusts at the state Department of Justice--the agency overseeing such charities--about the “irresponsible” use of MADD’s public contributions on extravagances.

In a 1993 letter to the Department of Justice that was light on specifics, one former employee wrote: “In my opinion, certain things occurred at my last two years at MADD to make me doubt the money is being spent in accordance with the wishes of the donors.”

The Department of Justice never responded to the letters and did not return a reporter’s phone calls this week. The letter-writers declined to be named.

Robinson and Pasco termed the letters the work of “disgruntled employees with axes to grind.” Robinson said the charges predated his involvement with MADD.

“Could we have done things better?” he said. “The answer is ‘Yes.’ Did we always take perfect approach and get right people involved in the right jobs? Probably not.”

MADD’s mission remains critical. More than 16,500 people nationwide were killed last year in alcohol-related accidents and another million were injured.

Slowly, however, statistics suggest that the mayhem is declining. Law enforcement authorities largely attribute the shift to new seat belt laws and vehicle air bags--and acknowledge the influence of MADD’s campaign.

The number of drivers arrested countywide for drinking and driving dropped from 20,721 to 17,605 between 1993 and 1994. Statewide, alcohol-related driving arrests fell from 105,698 to 90,515 over the same period, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Fatalities connected with alcohol-related accidents have also plummeted 50% in the city of Los Angeles--from 89 in 1990 to 44 in 1995, LAPD statistics show. Also, the number of drivers killed on freeways statewide from alcohol-related accidents dropped from 2,382 in 1990 to 1,488 in 1994.

MADD organizers say they are devising new ways to earn money--including a new product called MADD Munchies, a food line they hope, with the help of a Van Nuys-based company called Snacks to Go, will soon reach thousands of retail outlets nationwide.

With a 10% donation from each snack package sold, Robinson said MADD believes it has finally found a “sustainable funding vehicle that will get us through the tough times.”

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In the meantime, staffing cutbacks has made Tina Pasco’s job harder.

This week she is helping Kathleen Hutchins, whose 26-year-old son, Lewis, died when a suspected drunk driver hit a car in which he was a passenger.

“I’m so emotionally vulnerable I couldn’t imagine being able to go through this terrible experience without Tina’s help, without MADD being here with me,” Hutchins said recently as she waited outside a West Los Angeles courtroom. Her son worked as a film executive at 20th Century Fox studios not far away.

Earlier that morning, Pasco drove Hutchins to the courthouse, introduced her to prosecutors and police officers, patted her hand, showed her the local legal ropes.

While the MADD worker had helped all she could, Hutchins knew it was ultimately up to her to walk inside that courtroom and face the man she believes is responsible for her son’s death. Broken-hearted, she would then have to board a plane for the emotional red-eye flight home to Massachusetts.

“My son is gone and I am carrying on for him because he cannot be here,” the mother said. “When Tina and I walk into that courtroom, I am Lewis. And I will see that he gets justice.”