Thursday, February 28, 2008
Fake IDs come with the territory of a college town, but students and liquor stores should be on the lookout. The Lawrence Police Department conducted compliance checks this month in an effort to catch stores selling to minors.
Stan Ward, a sergeant at the Lawrence Police Department, said 26 percent of stores failed these compliance checks and furnished alcohol to minors.
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Lawrence 2007: 455; 2006: 575; 2005: 583; 2004: 641; 2003: 643
Chapel Hill 2007: 302; 2006: 250; 2005: 254; 2004: 328; 2003: 317
College Station 2007: 368; 2006: 331; 2005: 295; 2004: 332; 2003: 237
Stillwater 2007: 199; 2006: 266; 2005: 299; 2004: 309; 2003: 211
Stillwater 2007: 400; 2006: 476; 2005: 578; 2004: 601; 2003: 425
The Kansas Alcoholic Beverage Control, KABC, awarded grant money to the Lawrence Police Department to conduct the compliance checks. Police used the funds to send underage buyers into stores to attempt to make purchases with expired IDs or none at all. To be fair, the buyers were all between 18- and 19-years-old so that they would appear young enough to card.
Ward said the department was working for a while to reduce the flow of alcohol to minors through media releases and informational training flyers in an attempt to get the stores to comply voluntarily in the months leading up to the checks.
This is not the first time the city teamed up with KABC to control criminal activity in the city. Last year, the city used KABC to help monitor and document violations in the downtown club Last Call. KABC gives the city more authority in controlling businesses licensed by the state, but only after extensive violations within the club have been reported. Tom Groneman, KABC director, was able to deny Last Call’s liquor license when it came up for renewal, which led to the eventual close of the club.
The Lawrence Police Department recorded 53 liquor law violations in 2005, compared to only 44 in 2007. The most obvious success the city made was in drunk driving incidents. Police issued nearly a third less citations for drunk diving in 2007 than just five years ago. In 2003, Lawrence had 643 arrests for driving under the influence and by 2007 that number declined to 455.
Even though these numbers have decreased, Lawrence has high numbers for both drunk driving and underage drinking compared to other college towns. Columbia, Mo. came close to Lawrence with 400 DWI arrests in 2007, but Stillwater, Okla., didn’t even break the 200 mark. Over the last five years, Lawrence was consistently higher in alcohol-related incidents.
Ronald Olin, Lawrence Chief of Police, told the Lawrence City Commission that the city spent $33,447 last summer for a Summer Safety Intiative, which was supposed to help lower crimes in the Downtown Lawrence Entertainment district. Olin said that during the Summer Safety Initiative, the police felt as though they could take care of important issues in the community better because they had ten on-duty officers to take care of issues in the entertainment district. During the initiative, police conducted 169 bar checks in 55 establishments, as well as 207 traffic enforcement actions, Olin said.
Olin said the bar checks led to increased safety within the establishments and the owners were cooperative overall. Olin also mentioned that patrons interviewed expressed feelings of safety and satisfaction in Downtown Lawrence. Olin described some Lawrence residents as “happy citizens” in the downtown area, but said the overall disturbance in the area was much less.
Ward said the city will continue its random compliance checks throughout 2008, in order to decrease selling to minors and curb alcohol violations. Fake IDs may become a thing of the past in this college town.
— Edited by Mandy Earles
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