Alianza Merchant Education Finding Success
In pursuing our goal of preventing access to alcohol by underage youth, we regularly assess potential risks of alcohol vendors through Alcohol Purchase Surveys.
We’re able to conduct these surveys with the help of volunteers that are at least 21 years old, but appear younger than 21 years old. This young appearing buyer attempts to buy alcohol without identification. Our hope is that the clerk will not go through with the sale once it is determined the potential buyer does not have an acceptable form of verifying their age. If a clerk follows through with the sale without verifying age of young looking buyer, the results are shared with store management, along with training opportunities to enable them to conduct appropriate follow up.
Between the months of March and July of this year, we conducted these Alcohol Purchase Surveys for the first time since 2019. We would like to congratulate the stores that passed these surveys and encourage them to continue being responsible vendors! In 2019, only about 55% of stores successfully checked for ID. This year, however, that number grew to about 66%! This is great news and we look forward to continuing our work and seeing this number improve.
This post was written by Nick Rios, Latino Program Coordinator at Center for Prevention Services and Alianza Coalition.
