The charismatic founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Candace L. Lightner, is lending her name and reputation to the liquor industry.

Lightner, a leader in changing the public's tolerance for drinking and driving, began work last week as a paid lobbyist for the American Beverage Institute, a trade group representing restaurants and breweries.

Among her goals is to defeat laws supported by MADD that aim to have drivers with an .08 percent blood alcohol content level considered drunk, rather than the .10 percent standard of drunkeness now in effect for drivers in many states. She is promoting the Beverage Institute position that law enforcement instead should concentrate its efforts on punishing repeat offenders whose blood alcohol content level is above .10.

Lightner dismissed any suggestion that her work on behalf of the Beverage Institute contradicted the years she has spent publicizing the tragedy of the death of her 13-year-old daughter, who was killed walking down the street in Sacramento by a repeat drunken driving offender.

"I assume some people will say, `Gee, what's she doing working for the industry, the other side,' " Lightner said Thursday in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C. "I don't see it as the other side. They're just as affected by drunk driving as anyone else. Drunk driving certainly doesn't enhance their business. They have friends, neighbors and relatives hurt by drunk driving."

Lightner founded MADD in 1980 but was fired by the board in 1985 because of disagreements, including Lightner's belief that MADD should accept money from the liquor industry. During her tenure as president, she accepted a donation to MADD from Anheuser-Busch that came "with no strings attached," she said.

Andrew McGuire, executive director of the Trauma Foundation at San Francisco General Hospital and a former MADD board member, said that any link with the industry is counterproductive to anti-drunken-driving efforts.

"Anyone who is serious about preventing drunk driving should not ever get in bed with the alcohol industry because the industry has the goal of getting more people to drink and when more people drink you have more drunk driving," he said.

Lightner declined to say what her salary is as a lobbyist with Berman & Co., but said it was less than her salary at MADD, which was $76,000 a year.

MADD now has 3 million members and 423 U.S. chapters.

Beckie Brown, current national president of MADD in Irving, Texas, said Lightner's new job with the Beverage Institute would not damage MADD's reputation.

"When we discuss issues I don't think anything can damage MADD's credibility," Brown said. "We do have evidence to back up what we say. . . . We believe .08 needs to be passed and Candy doesn't. We just have a difference in philosophy right now."