Beer executive Pete Coors pleads not guilty to DUI charge
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Beer company executive Pete Coors has pleaded not guilty to charges of driving under the influence and failing to stop at a stop sign. His attorney entered the pleas for him Tuesday and Coors did not appear in court, said Jefferson County district attorney’s spokeswoman Pam Russell. Coors, 59, vice chairman and a director of Molson Coors Brewing Co., was pulled over by the state patrol 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 a breath test showed his blood-alcohol content was 0.088. The legal limit is 0.08. Hatland said Wednesday the not guilty plea was part of the procedure of Coors’ attorney asking for a pretrial hearing. She declined to say whether the plea indicated Coors was disputing the allegation. “What I can say is he’s sorry to be involved in this situation at all, including the court process, but like any citizen, he has rights now that he’s here,” she said. Coors often appears in television ads for the company and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in 2004. He apologized last week for not following his own advice to drink responsibly. Coors lives just west of Denver in Golden, the longtime hometown of the Adolph Coors Co. until it became Molson Coors Brewing Co. after a 2005 merger. |