Reducing alcohol sales to minors

The Blue Springs Police Department’s commitment to preventing illegal alcohol sales to youth in our community is assisted by federal funding under the Enforcement of Underage Drinking Laws grant program.
The Missouri Department of Public Safety awarded grants totaling nearly $200,000 to law enforcement agencies in 30 Missouri cities, counties, and state universities to increase the state’s ability to enforce underage drinking laws and to prevent youth access to alcohol.
Through the process of applying for EUDL grant programs, applicants may request funds for a variety of projects to reduce underage drinking.
Utilizing a competitive bid process, for the second consecutive year in a row, the Department of Public Safety awarded EUDL grants to Blue Springs Police Department. This year’s grant totaled $8,900. The EUDL grant pays for the overtime and enforcement costs to perform underage drinking prevention and enforcement activities.
The grant initiative is administered by the Blue Springs Police Department’s Street Crimes Unit, and will be conducted under the grant through Feb. 28, 2010. Compliance checks at establishments that sell alcoholic beverages on or off the premises of the business are conducted to ensure that retailers are compliant with state laws and local ordinances to reduce illegal sales of alcoholic beverages. 
The consequences of underage drinking are often tragic. Studies have shown that the use of alcohol by underage youth may lead to traumatic injury, drowning, violent crime, property crime, high-risk sex, fetal alcohol syndrome, alcohol poisoning and teen death. Alcohol often plays a role in the leading causes of death for teenagers and young adults: motor vehicle crashes, homicides, and suicides. Enforcing underage drinking laws protects our youth from these dangers.
EUDL grant activities specifically target contributing factors to underage drinking such as the youth’s ability to illegally purchase alcohol and/or having another person, over the age of 21, purchase it for them. Recent initiatives have shown that the percentage of establishments in Blue Springs selling alcohol without proper identification checks has dropped dramatically from checks conducted as recently as two years ago.
In addition, handlers are checked to ensure that proper permits have been obtained. The city mandates that all retail alcohol servers attend training classes that cover city ordinances and state laws, and provides a lesson plan on how to detect underage purchases of illegal alcohol sales. The classes are held at the Howard L. Brown Public Safety Building, 1100 S.W. Smith St. in the multi-purpose room on the second Sunday of each month at 4 p.m. and the fourth Wednesday of each month at 1:30 p.m. The training lasts approximately one hour, and the fee for the handlers permit is $30, good for three years.
The Blue Springs Police Department remains committed to preventing the illegal sale of alcohol in our community. Anyone with information should contact the Police Department at 228-0151 or through the city Web site at www.bluespringsgov.com.