The annual Franklin Street Halloween event is a continuing source of community debate. No longer a family festival, families were pushed aside by large university age crowds from UNC and surrounding counties. Even with efforts to reduce its size, estimates this year report 50,000 attendees.

Off-duty law enforcement officers from throughout the region are hired for security and crowd control. Emergency medical transports for alcohol poisonings, as usual, occurred, and assaults, including the stabbing of a UNC student, were reported.

Though bar operators report substantial profits, most merchants surveyed claim the event has a negative financial impact on their business. Road traffic was restricted, while nearby residential areas endured the evening's raucous, second-hand effects, including vandalism and noise disturbance. Town officials acknowledge the management costs paid by residents to be in excess of $200,000, though it's likely the overall financial cost is far greater.

Halloween is scary, indeed.

Regardless of the issues of whether residents should underwrite this event or whether any town should sponsor or enable alcohol-fueled activities (mostly underage), this demonstrates another example of the many ways alcohol concerns impose a financial burden on others, particularly non-participants. The financial burden for this event falls squarely upon local taxpayers, town resources, health care, households, victims and merchants.

Research finds most of the economic impact from alcohol abuse is borne by or transferred to the non-abusing population. The largest share is shifted to governments, which, in turn, shift their burden to taxpayers. But the negative financial consequences are shared by many, including families, social welfare, health care, crime victims, employers and others, as only a small sample.

In North Carolina, though the overall cost of alcohol abuse is many times greater, studies find that underage drinking alone costs our state $1.4 billion annually in health care and other costs. Yet we collect only $212 million in total alcohol taxes to defray those costs.

A Columbia University study finds that for every dollar collected in federal and state alcohol taxes, we spend nearly $9 dealing with the negative consequences of alcohol and other drug abuse.

Pennsylvania State University President Graham Spanier accurately observed, "Excessive drinking can lead to profound heath, social and economic consequences, not only for excessive drinkers, but, also, for those around them."

UNC Assistant Vice Chancellor Winston Crisp, disturbed by weekly reports of student alcohol and sexual abuse, said, "The tolerance of the community has reached its endpoint. The tolerance of the university in cleaning up disasters on a weekly basis is over."

Defining it for what it is, underage drinking is not a "rite of passage," but, instead, is a serious health threat to young people. We must reduce this threat while, at the same time, reducing its extraordinary economic costs paid by non-participants.

It's unreasonable to continue subsidizing such costs as the price for allowing too many youths to damage their health and future at others expense.

Abusive drinking imposes an extraordinary financial burden upon town residents. It's time for our town council, joining university leadership, to decisively act, for the sake of both drinker and non-participant, to prevent underage drinking.

Ronald E. Bogle is a retired Superior Court judge and works with the Coalition for Alcohol and Drug Free Teenagers.