From Deseret News archives:

Anti-minor liquor effort is paying off

Published: Thursday, Jan. 5, 2006 11:24 p.m. MST
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
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.

Story continues below
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.

Comments

You can be the first to comment on this story.

previousnext

Latest comments

Time to get ready for the CCL and to whoop up on the Champs from Mexico, the...

Real Champions

SUPER GREAT RSL!!! See Utah..soccer is a great sport!!! Now aren't you glad...

This is a very strange story that makes no sense at all I will be looking for...

I remember reading that Joseph Smith was hauled into court for divining or...

Wow. ABC and the AMA's owe the country an apology. That was disgusting. If...

Ronald Wilson Reagan: The greatest president since Abraham Lincoln. If only...

2009 MLS Cup recap

This is the kind of stuff that they make movies about! A player's wife...

Paper circulation worse than it looks

I enjoy having the newspaper in front of me while I eat breakfast. I like to...

I wonder again how many haters actually read the articles instead of just...

RSL wins MLS Cup on penalty kicks

I don't like the English game of Crickett, so I don't read anything having to...

Advertisements