If I Had a Million Dollars, Some Miller Lite Girl Would Take It Away

By Chuck Sudo on Jul 31, 2007 2:30PM

Chances are that if you frequent a tavern, you'll eventually find yourself in the middle of a beer promotion, usually entailing scantily clad women giving away free beer and tchotchkes you normally wouldn't buy with money found on the street. However, you were taught not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and free beer is free beer.

Such was the case of Ed Evashenke, a retired machinist collecting disability, living on a fixed income with his wife. Last month, the Evashenkes and their friends were at Coach's Corner in suburban Orland Park during a Miller Lite promotion. The promotion consisted of Miller Lite girls handing out tickets that read "No one knows that I...". The other half of the sentence was hidden underneath a window on the ticket, readable only with a blue cellophane decoder. The tickets awarded holders the aforementioned ca-ca like bottle openers, cozies, or free Miller Lite. Ed Evashenke's ticket read "No one knows that I ... won a million dollars."

If it ended there, it would be one of those rare moments where drinking Miller Lite would be a good thing. Here in the real world, however, when Evashenke showed his ticket to a Miller Lite girl, she snatched it from his hand and claimed that his ticket was for another promotion. Now Evashenke is considering filing a legal claim to get the prize he feels is rightfully his. Miller Brewing is claiming that Evashenke's ticket was one of many that was intended as a joke. We think we have a good sense of humor. However, we still can't find any in "No one knows that I'm being played by a beer company that could afford to give me what was promised on the ticket that was snatched from my hand by some tease in a suburban sports bar."

Promotions like this are intended to do two things: sell beer, and solidify a good relationship between the business hosting the promotion and that business' customers. Unfortunately for the management at Coach's Corner, they're siding with Miller in this argument. They are in an unenviable position, but with a little moxie could still have kept the Evashenkes as customers. Instead, the Evashenkes will only see Coach's Corner as the bar where they were screwed out of a small security blanket in their golden years.