NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Mothers Against Drunk Driving's efforts have cut into legal, social drinking, according to comments by a trade group of restaurant owners in a newspaper report Thursday, but the group is winning praise from an insurance group.

"MADD doesn't seem to be focusing enough on the core problem of the alcohol abuser," John Doyle, executive director of the American Beverage Institute, told USA Today in a story about the group's 25th anniversary. "Instead, they are targeting responsible adults who drink legally before driving."

The paper says liquor retailers are also critics of the group. The critics told the paper the group has cut into alcohol sales by pushing what they call questionable tactics such as roadblocks by police and by demonizing social drinking.

More surprisingly, it reports that the criticism of the ABI, which represents restaurant chains including T.G.I. Friday's and Outback Steakhouse, are also shared by MADD's founder.

"They've become very neo-prohibitionist in their philosophy," Candy Lightner, who founded MADD after a drunken driver killed her 13-year-old daughter, told the paper. "I encouraged them to focus on the hard-drinking driver vs. what's commonly known as the social drinker."

But others commend the group's efforts, which they say are at least partly responsible for reducing the number of alcohol-related crashes by 300,000 since 1980.

"They've helped to change attitudes," Brian O'Neill of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety told the paper. "Legislation that has made a difference has passed, and it would not have if they were not involved."

On Capitol Hill Thursday, U.S. senators and a marching band are scheduled to join the celebration with Glynn Birch, the first father to serve as MADD's president.

For a look at what the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said about minivan safety, click here.