45 out of 48 Marshall County Merchants Allow Teens to Purchase Alcohol: Where do we go from here?

Many parents think they have a good understanding of how their kids spend their time. Whether it’s going over their friend’s house to hangout, playing various sports or staying after school to study, a parent trust that their child is doing what they have taught them to do…the right thing. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case with many kids today. Recent studies have indicated that youth in Marshall County are beginning to drink alcohol at very early ages, some as early as 10 years old. Equally alarming; 32% of teens drink alcohol monthly. So the question then becomes, how do the kids in our community get their hands on alcohol? It’s quite simple, they can find it in their home, get it from their friends or they just walk right into a store and buy it.

Last year, the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department conducted “compliance checks” with 48 local merchants. At each location, an underage inspector was sent in to purchase various alcoholic beverages. After they had selected their products, they were to then proceed to the checkout area. If asked for I.D., they would show their license which clearly stated that they were underage. If the store clerk processed the sale, their store would fail the compliance check. Disturbingly, out of the 48 retailers targeted by the compliance checks, 45 sold to minors. That is a 94% sale rate in Marshall County! In most cases, the store associate never asked for identification and even when the question was asked, they either ignored the fact that the inspector was underage or they entered in their own birth date to process the sale. The 45 businesses at fault were given a ticket and could either pay the fine or attend a retailer education program called TIPS (Training for Intervention ProcedureS) which has been proven successful in the training of severs and sellers of alcohol on responsible beverage sales practices.

Understanding the problems this issue presented for the community and armed with the information from the 2008 Compliance Check operation, The Marshall County Family Resource Network applied for and was recently awarded the Purdue Pharma Asset Forfeiture Funds Grant. The grant funds increased the Compliance Checks as well as provide the necessary TIPS training to retailers. It also helps the Marshall County FRN and Sheriff’s Department work toward the ultimate goal of driving down underage alcohol sales through education and enforcement. For further information on the TIPS training program, visit http://www.gettips.com/ and for future updates on the 2009 Compliance Checks for Marshall County, subscribe to our blog or visit http://www.marshallcountyfrn.com/.