It’s Friday night and the bars downtown are packed, but it’s not just locals and students who inhabit the bars.
Local police visit more than 100 retail businesses and bars per year as part of their alcohol compliance checks. Typically two days per month are designated for alcohol compliance checks with the goal of decreasing underage drinking on and around campus.
“We attempt to check every licensed liquor establishment at least one time each year,” CPD Sgt. Eric Hughes said. “If there is a violation, we attempt to check the business again within a few months.”
Alcohol compliance checks are tools used to identify alcohol establishments that sell alcohol to underage youth. Compliance checks can be mandated by a local ordinance, people or agencies responsible for conducting the compliance checks, and penalties for establishments, servers and sellers who illegally sell or serve alcohol to underage youth.
When conducting compliance checks, a series of standards listed on the Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control Compliance Buy Checklist must be met in order for administrative action to be taken against a licensee.
According to this checklist, the police are instructed to look for minors 18 or 19 years of age with a youthful appearance. If the suspected minor is a male, he shall not have facial hair or a receding hairline, if a female, shall not wear excessive makeup or excessive jewelry and male or female, shall not wear headgear that will obstruct a clear view of the face or hairline.
The police department does not have a specific quota they need to meet but they still write up underage drinkers on a frequent basis, Hughes said.
“The police department has one main goal and that is the safety of the public,” he said.
Hughes said businesses are often chosen for the checks if they are nationally recognized as an unsafe business practice.
“One of those unsafe business practices is ‘soft carding’ or merely looking at identification and not really checking it,” Hughes said. “We will frequent that establishment more until we reach a satisfactory mutual agreement that the business is now on the right track to making the community a safe environment for all to enjoy.”
Columbia bars, including Harpo’s and Campus Bar & Grill were not available for comment.
Hughes said many patrons find alcohol compliance checks to be disruptive and a nuisance but said this is a misconception.
“This is an understandable belief since we tend to go into the bars at their busiest times when the most people would see us, however, bar checks truly are a small percentage of our time,” he said. “But that small percentage has enormous impacts on beliefs and on prevention of underage drinking.”
