Legislature(2003 - 2004)
02/25/2004 03:25 PM House L&C
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 428-CIVIL PENALTY: UNDERAGE ALCOHOL PURCHASES REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG announced that the first order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 428, "An Act relating to civil liability for acts related to obtaining alcohol for persons under 21 years of age or for persons under 21 years of age being on licensed premises." Number 0085 REPRESENTATIVE KEVIN MEYER, Alaska State Legislature, sponsor of HB 428, testified: This bill is a good example of private industry working with [nonprofits] to help the whole community and the state without any government intervention. What this bill does is allow civil action of up to $1,000 to be applied against an adult who is trying to buy [alcohol] for people under age 21, and also allows for a civil fine up to $1,000 for kids who try to get an adult to buy alcoholic beverages for them "underage." This bill was actually brought to my attention by the Anchorage Assembly and by Brown Jug liquor [store]. I think Brown Jug is on line to testify. The Anchorage Assembly has passed this bill, and when I was on the Anchorage Assembly, we passed a similar bill to this for kids who tried to use fake IDs [identification]. Then allowing ... Brown Jug and Chilkoots to take action, I guess, up to $1,000. This one goes specifically for the adults who are buying for the kids, and/or kids who are trying to get adults to buy for them. Number 0203 REPRESENTATIVE MEYER continued: [House Bill 428] ... is a combination of Brown Jug working with nonprofits because the $1,000 fine that these kids or adults are assessed will be waived, if they agree to go to this intervention training, which is about a 16-hour training. I think what we're going to hear today from Brown Jug - who is, for the most part, the only liquor licensee who is using this particular program - is that a lot of people are taking advantage of that, which is a good thing. Now they are getting education from MADD [Mothers Against Drunk Driving], as well as (indisc.), and Brown Jug. The success of the program has been very good in Anchorage, and you will hear from Brown Jug that they have had over 900 cases that they have actually brought against kids or adults.... You've probably heard of the "hey mister" where a kid is trying to "tag down" someone to go buy beer for them. [Representative Rokeberg], you in particular are aware of this, that this is a problem - adults buying for minors. ... I think you brought it up to the felony level, which is where it belongs. Unfortunately, 40 percent of the time, kids are still able to get people to buy booze for them. Theoretically, you could be sitting at the 7-Eleven [convenience store] lot and every third person you ask will still buy booze for you. Number 0337 REPRESENTATIVE MEYER continued: Programs like this help in the sense that it's all done on the civil side; it's outside the criminal side. A person doesn't even have to be prosecuted on the criminal side for the Brown Jug or other liquor licenses to take civil action against these folks. Almost all of [the fine] is waived, up to $700, if they agree to go to the training put on by these various nonprofits.... All this is being done without any government intervention and, because of that, I've asked for your support on this. Frankly, we just don't have enough police officers in this state to enforce the laws that we have, especially the liquor laws. The more private industry that we can get helping us, like Brown Jug, who is willing to go after these adults and kids who are trying to buy [alcohol], the better off our whole community and, I think, our state will be. REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG clarified that he did not make [the violation of law that Representative Meyer had referred to in his testimony, minor in possession] a felony; he changed it from a violation to a misdemeanor. REPRESENTATIVE MEYER stated he had referred to buying for a minor as being a felony. Number 0427 REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG turned the gavel over to Vice Chair Carl Gatto. REPRESENTATIVE LYNN asked for clarification on the types of penalties that would come into effect with the passage of this bill. REPRESENTATIVE MEYER replied that a criminal penalty applies for an adult buying a minor alcoholic beverages and a civil penalty would apply if this bill passes. He also noted that it's difficult to prove the felony, but less difficult to prove the civil case. He stated: They catch these guys on camera, or they catch the kids out in the car waiting for the adults to come back out and hand the booze to them. A lot of times, that alone is enough for them to take civil action. Again, I think you'll hear that rather than paying the $1,000 civil action, the adult who is buying for the kids will just go through this intervention training program put on by MADD, and (indisc.), and other nonprofits. REPRESENTATIVE LYNN asked if the licensee could suffer civil damages. Number 0573 REPRESENTATIVE MEYER replied: If you knowingly sold to a minor, it could be pretty severe penalties to the liquor establishment that does that. Again, Brown Jug would be better to say. In my experience on the assembly, if that happened, there's a good chance that their license would not get renewed, and, of course, economic heartache. What happens here is that Brown Jug could go ahead and take the civil action of up to $1,000, which the court lets them do now. The Anchorage Assembly has already passed this. This is law, a municipal ordinance in Anchorage. They could keep that full $1,000, but their intent is not to make money off of this program. Their intent is to educate - especially these young kids, the minors, who are trying to get the booze - of the harmful effects, or potentially harmful effects, of drinking underage. They are also trying to teach the older people who are buying for the kids that you should not do that. They don't make any money in the process. In fact, they are waiving $700. I imagine they probably keep $50 or $100 there just for their administrative costs to file the civil suit. The rest goes to the nonprofits to put on the 16-hour [program]. Number 0680 O.C. MADDEN, Owner, Brown Jug, Anchorage, testified: We approached Representative Meyer with this bill because it's been so effective here in Anchorage. I've had requests from other parts of the state wondering when something like this was going to be available for them to use. I got a request from a licensee in Fairbanks, in particular, after they read an article in the paper about the program we'd instituted in Anchorage. We decided we would approach Representative Meyer and see if he would sponsor this. What the problem is that we're seeing is (indisc.) percent of the people are approached by total strangers in the parking lot to buy alcohol for minors. We deal with those sorts of situations on a regular basis. What we look for, we've put together some profiles of people that like to buy for minors, or profile transactions that we look for. We conduct surveillance with trained security personnel, then intervene in these matters, and conduct interviews with the people involved to determine if they are actually purchasing for minors. If they are, we proceed from there. Number 0725 MR. MADDEN continued: We've determined there's basically three types of people, three categories of people, that buy for minors. There's the friends and siblings, that sort of thing. Public inebriates make up a big group, [since it's] easy to get them to buy for minors. Then, disturbingly, we find a pretty substantial number of the people we arrest for these crimes are sex offenders with minors, and they're purchasing alcohol for them. We're using this right now in conjunction with Akeela [House], Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and STAR [Standing Together Against Rape]. We will waive $700 of the civil penalty if they will go ahead, sign up, and successfully complete these classes. We're getting a really good response right back. Virtually all of the kids have signed up for the classes. We've got a few adults that have not signed up for the classes. One, I believe, is incarcerated and a couple others, we're going to actually go through the whole process, and go after the civil penalty and small claims with them.... Number 0796 MR. MADDEN continued: Representative Meyer made reference to 900 cases. We've had over 900 cases of fraudulent ID seized. We've got a little over 120, I think, so far, in the last couple of years, of these third-party purchases that we proceeded in. VICE CHAIR GATTO asked Mr. Madden to explain how he is able to profile his customers. MR. MADDEN replied: What we look for is a profile situation. ... The perfect profile situation would be a car that's parked behind the building, when there's parking available directly in front of the door. There are minors in the vehicle, and there's an adult in the store that's buying multiple products. He's got a six-pack of Budweiser, a four-pack of wine coolers, a bottle of this, a bottle of that. He's clearly buying for more than one person, and the vehicle is parked in such a manner that it's pretty suspicious. Those are the type of situations that we see where we initiate interviews. Number 0920 DOUGLAS B. GRIFFIN, Director, Alcoholic Beverage Control Board ("ABC" Board), Department of Public Safety, testified that he thought this bill could be an effective tool in combating underage drinking and that the ABC Board was supportive of any efforts to advance that goal. Number 0979 CINDY CASHEN, MADD Alaska Chapters [Mothers Against Drunk Driving], representing the Anchorage, Fairbanks, Mat-Su and Juneau Chapters of MADD, testified that her organization supports HB 428. She stated: We support House Bill 428, as it will assist in the prevention of underage drinking. Representative Meyer's bill will provide a tool to Alaskan liquor licensees, and empower responsible businesses to participate in community policing. Each week in Alaska, courtrooms hear from our teens who are able to successfully obtain alcohol that they were able to get it from shoulder taps or, like Representative Meyer called them, "Mister Wouldyas". Basically, they [underage youth] go up and say, "Mister, would you buy me some booze?" [They do this] often for little or no cost at all. I have sat in those courtrooms and listened to teen after teen, and the judges usually question where did they get the alcohol. They say, "I don't know" or "It was someone walking into the store." They'll ask how much did it cost, and [the underage youth will] say "$5," "nothing," "$1." I have the Alaska youth risk-behavior study from 2003, in which 42 schools from 19 districts with 2,175 completed questionnaires were handed in. According to the YRBS [Youth Risk Behavior Survey], 38.7 percent of teenagers who completed this survey claimed that they had at least one drink in the 30 days prior; 26.5 percent claimed that they had binged, that they had consumed five or more drinks within a couple of hours in the 30 days prior to the survey. It's pretty high; it's over 45 percent of the students who completed this survey. In comparison, 29.9 percent of Alaskan adults reported binge drinking one or more times in the past month. The kids are right up there with the adults, already. This survey also showed that 23.2 percent of Alaska high school students had their first drink of alcohol before the age of 13. House Bill 428 will deter those who might otherwise consider contributing to Alaska's minor-consuming problem, and punish those who feel it's a right of passage, or they're going to do it anyway. Providing alcohol to minors results, as you all know, in senseless tragedies: drunk driving, burglaries, assault, rape, death by alcohol poisoning - I could go on and on. This is a good bill, and like Representative Meyer said, it doesn't involve government, there's no cost to it, and it's empowering members of our community. We strongly support [HB 428], and we're glad to see that the Brown Jug brought it before Representative Meyer. Number 1146 VICE CHAIR GATTO mentioned an experience that he had while teaching in a classroom, which involved a drunken student. MS. CASHEN responded: The studies show that people who begin drinking at an early age are four times more likely to become alcoholics or have serious alcohol problems. So, the longer we can keep them from drinking, the better. I want to add that this summer I received a phone call from an employee of a successful liquor store in Juneau. He had been employed there, and currently is, for over a decade. He was frustrated because they are having the same problem that Brown Jug sees, and there was nothing they could do. He wanted to know if there was anything that MADD knew of that could empower them to stop [the problem]. Usually, it was older, about 21- to 25-year-old-men, who were purchasing alcohol for young, teenage girls. The girls would be parked across the street, exactly as Mr. Madden described. They would even accuse the person, and sometimes they were brave enough to kick the person out who was attempting to buy [alcohol]. The guy would just say, "I'm just going to go buy it somewhere else." This [bill] would make a big difference. Number 1251 VICE CHAIR GATTO said, "If it was just because the kids got drunk, that would be one issue, but sometimes they trade sexual favors for this, and then the consequences are forever." REPRESENTATIVE LYNN moved to report HB 428 out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal notes. There being no objection, HB 428 was reported from the House Labor and Commerce Standing Committee.
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