Program Tackles Underage Alcohol Buying In Florida

<editor's note>
from The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, Fla.
</editor's note>

 
Underage alcohol purchasers beware: The smiling face behind the counter of the 
local convenience store may now belong to a law enforcement agent, not a mere 
store clerk.

In a program that started in Jacksonville, Florida yesterday, the state 
Department of Business and Professional Regulation is teaming up with local 
beverage retailers and a Washington, D.C.-based group called the Century 
Foundation. The foundation began the program, called "Cops in Shops," to keep 
alcohol out of the hands of underage drinkers. It is now used in 42 states.

"What we're trying to do is bring law enforcement together with retailers to 
put an emphasis on something that they should be doing every day," said Ralph 
Blackman, Century's president and CEO. The Century Foundation is sponsored by 
a group of large distillers and works to fight alcohol abuse, focusing on 
underage drinking and drunken driving.

The program works by placing plainclothes state alcohol enforcement agents 
behind the counter at grocery, liquor and convenience stores -- any type of 
store that sells alcohol for consumption off premises. The agents, from the 
Department of Business and Professional Regulation's Division of Alcoholic 
Beverages and Tobacco, will not handle money but help store employees with 
purchases.

Another plainclothes agent will be stationed in the parking lot, to be on the 
lookout for legal alcohol buyers who pass it on to those who are underage.

Cops in Shops also relies on visual deterrents in the store, including posters, 
signs on cash registers and public service announcements that will begin airing 
on television stations throughout Florida after Election Day.

The punishment for someone caught trying to buy alcohol while underage is a 
$500 fine, 60 days in jail -- or both, according to A.J. Smith, chief 
enforcement officer for the Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco. It is 
a second- degree misdemeanor.

Smith has 160 agents statewide on the lookout for alcohol abuse, and he said 
while these agents visited alcohol stores before the Cops in Shops program, it 
was never done in such a concerted effort. He views Cops in Shops as one of 
several deterrents that his agents can use to stop underage drinking. The 
agency also investigates fake identification cards and provides educational 
programs to schools.

"We like to have a lot of different strategies so that the folks who are trying 
to buy alcohol don't know what strategies we're going to use on any given day," 
Smith said.

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There is naught, nor ought there be nothing so exalted on the face of God's 
grey Earth as that prince of foods... the muffin!

-Frank Zappa

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