Published: October 26, 2009 10:28 am      

Teen drinking a bit scary

County campaign targets sale of alcohol

The number of underage people who were able to purchase alcohol in Garvin County in recent monitored buy efforts was high enough to worry local law enforcement officials.

Identification to prove the purchaser’s age was rarely asked for, so authorities have decided they need to be more diligent about enforcing laws that prohibit the sale of alcohol to people younger than 21. And, they agree they need to work with area school officials to better educate teenagers about the effects and dangers of alcohol consumption.

“I had started to receive a lot of complaints from parents all across the county about kids being intoxicated,” Garvin County Sheriff Steve Brooks said.

“Their kids were able to purchase beer and liquor. The complaints were starting to get more and more,” he said.

Brooks said he spoke to 19 parents at one football game, all concerned because their teens could get alcohol. Deputies and officers at local police departments in the county were receiving similar complaints, Brooks said.

“So we started planning to do these monitored buys,” the sheriff said.

The sheriff’s office sought assistance from the Wichita Mountains Prevention Network, an organization that educates kids about alcohol and tobacco use.

Using minors from that organization, two rounds of the monitored buys were conducted in Garvin County.

In each case the juveniles would enter a business that sells beer or liquor and attempt to buy alcohol. The idea was to see which places would ask to see identification, since state law requires a person to be at least 21 years old to buy alcohol.

“To my surprise there were more stores than I even imagined that were selling to the minors,” Brooks said. “We thought the process would involve maybe three stores not being in compliance in the whole county. The first night we did this we could only do Pauls Valley.”

On the first night of the operation, employees in nine of the 14 Pauls Valley stores approached by minors failed to ask for identification. The numbers didn’t improve much a week when monitored buys were conducted in Wynnewood, Stratford, Maysville and Paoli. In those communities, seven of 12 stores failed to check the buyers’ ID.

Businesses in Elmore City and Lindsay haven’t been targeted yet, Brooks said.

Store owners were not pleased when their employees sold alcohol to minors, Brooks said. In some case employees lost their jobs. All the people who sold alcohol to minors were cited and face a criminal charge.

“The store owners I’ve talked to want to stay in compliance,” the sheriff said.

In fact, he said some claimed to “preach” to their staff to check IDs when selling alcohol. And, some owners say they remind their employees that people must be at least 18 years old to buy tobacco products.

“We’re not out to destroy anyone’s life or destroy a business. We want them to flourish,” Brooks said. “This is about kids being intoxicated. This is about the kids, period.”

The results from the monitored buys also show the need to continue checking on stores and the need to better educate the kids, Brooks said.

“The sheriff’s office wants to get a program going here geared at better educating the kids on the effects of alcohol,” he said.

“They don’t understand the effects of alcohol. It always takes something big for them to take notice of what it can do.”

Brooks prefers a proactive approach to the current matters. “If the stores remain in compliance then it’s harder for these kids to get the alcohol. Compliance is the beginning,” he said.

To ensure compliance, he wants to work with schools and school resource officers, other law enforcement agencies, mental health and substance abuse agencies, churches and anyone else who wants to help.

“Anybody that wants to get on board with this should come on down and we’ll talk about how you can be involved,” Brooks said.