TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Highlands Today

Undercover Checks On Underage Alcohol Sales Increasing

Photo illustration

Tougher enforcement of laws prohibiting drinking before age 21 is part of the recently launched "Be the Wall" campaign of Drug Free Highlands to reduce underage drinking.

ADVERTISEMENT

By JIM KONKOLY

Highlands Today

Published: March 10, 2009

SEBRING - Cashiers, bartenders and waitresses now have a much greater chance of being caught if they sell alcohol to an underage person.

On a regular basis, the Highlands County Sheriff's Office is using underage "investigative aides" who try to buy alcoholic beverages, to check if the sellers are correctly checking IDs.

"It's something that we just started, and it will be an ongoing operation," Capt. Randy LaBelle, head of the criminal investigations unit, told members of the Highlands County Homeowners Association at its meeting Monday morning.

Fifteen such undercover "compliance checks" were made over the past six weeks, and two people were cited for underage sales, LaBelle said.

"When we don't arrest a lot of people in these type of operations, that's a good thing, that means people are doing their jobs," he said.

Despite the high rate of compliance with the law, LaBelle said, the undercover checks on sellers of alcohol won't stop.

"We are going to continue to do this," he said. "We're not stopping."

LaBelle said the crackdown also includes a team of deputies checking regularly on three "hot spots" for underage drinking: at "the mud hole" in the Orange Blossom area, an area called "quail" in Sebring Hills, and at the Avon Park Estates.

"We have a unit of six people who go out every week and we've made some arrests," LaBelle said. "We are finding alcohol, we are finding drugs, we are finding firearms, a whole list of problems."

LaBelle said sheriff's detectives also will soon launch what he called the "shoulder tap operation."

"We've all seen it, a 17-year-old goes up to somebody walking into a convenience store and asks (an adult) if they can buy them alcohol," he said. Undercover investigators will be posing as teens trying to find an adult who will buy alcohol for them.

Tougher enforcement of laws prohibiting drinking before age 21 is part of the recently launched "Be the Wall" campaign of Drug Free Highlands to reduce underage drinking.

Debbie Lees, a retired FBI agent who runs the program, said the goal is to enlist every segment of the community to convince teenagers that drinking alcohol is not only illegal but also harmful to them.

"We're going to be trying to educate the parents and grandparents who are raising children, and at the same time we're going to be enforcing the law," Lees said.

Research shows conclusively that using alcohol and other drugs before age 21 hurts development of the brain, particularly the ability to make logical, rational decisions, she said.

Highlands County Sheriff Susan Benton recruited Lees to run the county's "Be the Wall" campaign and said she backs the drive 100 percent.

"Crime is driven by substance abuse," Benton told the audience of about 50 people at the homeowners meeting.

"On any given day," she added, "you go to our jail and probably for upwards of 80 percent of the folks in there . . . the underlying issues are substance abuse."

Benton said one thing is virtually constant as she talks to county jail inmates in drug rehabilitation programs. When asked how they started using drugs and how old they were, she said, "they say it all started with alcohol, and most of them were age 12 to 15 when they started drinking."

Of all drugs, alcohol poses the biggest risk to youth, Lees said. Since 2000, she said, a reliable statewide student survey shows that, year after year, alcohol is by far the No. 1 drug of choice by teens.

Abuse of prescription drugs by teens is definitely rising, Lees added, "but it is miniscule compared to their use of alcohol."

In addition to school-based and other programs targeting youth, the anti under-age drinking campaign must reach parents and community organizations to be effective, Lees said.

"Our past efforts have always been focusing on the youth," she said. "The research says when you only focus on the youth, the rates (of teen drinking) still tend to rise.

"The research now says you've got to get the parents, you've got to get the adults, and you've got to get the community involved."

Forty-one civic, school, faith-based and government organizations have joined the Highlands County "Be the Wall" campaign, Lees said, and she's trying to recruit more.

Highlands Today reporter Jim Konkoly can be reached at 863-386-5855 or e-mail jkonkoly@highlandstoday.com

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT