GOLDEN, Colorado – Beer executive Pete Coors pleaded guilty Friday to driving while impaired, a lesser charge than the DUI count filed against him after his May arrest, and was sentenced to 24 hours of community service.
The judge suspended a $200 fine, but ordered Coors to participate on a panel sponsored by Mothers Against Drunk Driving and to go through alcohol education courses. Coors’ driver’s license also was suspended for three months from the date of his arrest, and he must also pay $495 in court costs and fees.
District attorney’s spokeswoman Pam Russell said it was typical to dismiss the drunken driving charge for the lesser charge when defendants, like Coors, have no previous arrests.
The Denver Post reported that Coors entered the plea against the advice of his attorney because he thought the arrest had been an embarrassment to him and his company.
Coors, 59, vice chairman and a director of Molson Coors Brewing Co. (TAP), was pulled over by a state trooper May 28 after he left a friend’s wedding celebration.
Company spokeswoman Kabira Hatland has said Coors rolled through a stop sign a block from his Golden home and was stopped by the officer in his driveway. She said his blood-alcohol content after a breath test was 0.088 percent, above the 0.08 percent level at which a motorist is considered to be driving under the influence.
Coors often appears in television ads for the company and ran for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in 2004. He issued a statement last month apologizing for not following his own advice to drink responsibly.
Back Story: GOLDEN, Colorado – Pete Coors, the telegenic beer company executive and chief commercial pitcher, as well as a former Senate candidate, was arrested in May for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol, court officials said Thursday.
Coors was driving a 2004 Jaguar when he was pulled over in Golden by the Colorado State Patrol just before midnight on May 29, according to officials in the Jefferson County District Court clerk’s office.
He was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence after registering a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit of 0.08. He was also cited for failing to obey a traffic control device.
Coors, 59, faces a July 20 arraignment. Coors does not have a listed telephone number and messages left with local Republican officials in an attempt to reach him were not immediately returned.
Coors took over as president of the family company in 1987 and in 2000 was named chief executive of the brewer. The company has 8,500 employees and rang up $4 billion in sales in 2003. Adolph Coors merged with Molson to form the Molson Coors Brewing Co. in 2005.
Coors, a tall, silver-haired figure familiar to many as the face of the Coors television ads, was a political novice in 2004 when he decided to seek the Senate seat being given up by Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell. He won the Republican primary, but was defeated in the 2004 general election by Democrat Ken Salazar.