Drinking Vote Is Official

Although Massachusetts voters only narrowly approved the legislature's bill to lower the drinking age to 18, local legislators said yesterday that reconsideration of the measure during the 1973 session was unlikely.

"You get worried making predictions." State Representative Thomas H. D. Mahoney (D-Camb.) said yesterday, "but I don't foresee any chance (for a repeal)," he said. Mahoney supported the bill.

The November 7 referendum passed by 40,000 votes, the narrowest margin of the nine referendum questions, according to the official tally released Tuesday.

Governor Francis W. Sargent signed the bill earlier this year, lowering to 18 the minimum age for a person to buy or sell alcoholic beverages. The law is not scheduled to go into effect until March 1973.

While the popular vote results are not binding, opponents of the bill said at the time that if the question were approved by a slim margin, they would propose a repeal during the 1973 session.

However, both Mahoney and State Senator Francis X. McCann (D. Camb.), agreed separately yesterday that prospects were dim for a reconsideration.

Majority Decision

"Any intelligent person accepts the decision of the majority," McCann said, "and the majority has decided." McCann voted against the bill because he "thought it was moving too fast," but would not support a repeal.

Attorneys are presently looking into the options the new law will open for Harvard, Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, said yesterday. "The question is what would serve the students here best," he said.