Anti-minor liquor effort is paying off

PROVO — Getting the "Eliminate Alcohol Sales to Youth" program started in Utah County has been anything but easy, but officials say it's already producing positive results.

Nearly 3,400 cashiers, clerks and associates at stores where alcohol is sold have been trained and obtained their "beer-handlers permits" in the first 17 months of the program, said Pat Bird, prevention manager for the Utah County Division of Substance Abuse.

Compliance checks between April 2005 and December 2005 showed alcohol sales to those under 21 in Utah County have been reduced by as much as 25 percent, Bird said.

The Utah County Health Department conducted 384 compliance checks in that nine-month period and report 56 sales, giving the county a compliance rate of about 85 percent. Of those 56 sales, 21 were made by clerks and cashiers who had not been trained in the EASY program, he said.

"Based on the research that we did beforehand, there is a need for it," Bird said.

The program in Utah County prior to EASY's implementation had a compliance rate of between 60 percent and 65 percent.

All but four Utah County cities and towns are taking part in EASY, which is designed to reduce the availability of alcohol for youth, he said.

Bird and Richard Nance, director of the Utah County Division of Substance Abuse, on Thursday night addressed the Utah County Council of Governments, made up of Utah County commissioners and mayors from the county's cities and towns.

The goal was to share the program's successes with participating cities and encourage those who are not taking part in the program to do so, Bird said.

"There is a lot of research data that indicates that alcohol abuse by youth starts a whole series of future problems in motion," Nance said. "If we decrease or eliminate that, it will do a lot to put an end to a lot of future problems in our community."

In May 2004, the Division of Substance Abuse began meeting with city councils throughout the county in an effort to get them to adopt the EASY ordinance and require employees who sell alcohol in their respective cites receive the free training.

"There's no fee for the training for these individuals," Bird said. "All we're doing at the county is providing a service."

American Fork, Cedar Fort, Saratoga Springs and Santaquin chose not to participate in the program. Reasons for nonparticipation included some saying there's not a need for it in their cities and others expressing a desire to keep the county's involvement in city government limited, Bird said.

The program was modeled after a similar effort in Cedar City and combined with research conducted in Utah County to most effectively combat concerns with alcohol sales to minors, Nance explained.