Burr Ridge Stiffens Alcohol Rule For Workers

BURR RIDGE, IL – Burr Ridge is getting tougher with its alcohol rule for drivers of village vehicles.

As part of its personnel manual, village trustees on Monday decided to lower the threshold for employees' blood-alcohol level to zero, down from .02 percent.

In a January meeting, Trustee Russell Smith suggested strengthening the rule in light of last year's "unfortunate incident."

He was referring to then-Deputy Police Chief Ryan Husarik's suspected drunken driving while behind the wheel of a squad car in Virginia. Husarik's blood-alcohol level was reported at .20 percent. He was later demoted.

At Monday's Village Board meeting, village attorney Michael Durkin said trustees had the power to lower the percentage. But he said the U.S. Department of Transportation's threshold has been .02 percent for decades for drivers with commercial driver's licenses.

Trustee Guy Franzese said the percentage in Illinois and other states was .10 before it changed to .08 years ago.

"The trend is moving toward something less," Franzese said. "The message at 0.0 means that I can't have a cocktail at lunchtime. If it's 0.02, I can maybe have one cocktail, maybe two, if I'm careful."

He said zero was the threshold for much of the private sector.

Trustees unanimously decided to amend the manual to include the zero threshold. They agreed to include such a provision in the village's union contracts when they come up for negotiation.