Not Gettin' Your Drink On Here

No license, no liquor
By Kelvin Wade
April 29, 2010

Recently, two liquor stores in Fairfield were busted for selling alcohol to minors. And last week, a convenience store merchant in Vacaville was cited for selling to minors in a sting set up by a grant from the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. In the Vacaville case, the clerk even checked the minor's driver's license before making the sale. I can relate to that.

There was a liquor store on North Texas Street that me and my buddy Chumly would hit on the weekend when we were underage knuckleheads. The woman behind the register was super friendly and never carded us. We'd go in, joke around with her and leave shortly thereafter with 40 oz. bottles of malt liquor and plenty of smokes.

One time we went in and she told us that the police were cracking down on sales to minors. She felt that her store was under surveillance. By this time, we'd already loaded the check stand down with beers and cigars.

She said something to the effect of, 'I know you guys are OK but can you just hold up your ID's in case? I'm being watched.'

Chumly and I fished out our driver's licenses that clearly showed we were underage and held them up. She didn't bother to look at them. We put our IDs away, paid for our party favors and left.

She got busted a bit later.

If there is a liquor store selling booze to minors you can bet that teens know about it. Word travels fast. Often it's just laziness on the part of the sellers. More rare is the case of the woman who sold to us, someone who apparently didn't care who she sold to.

Obviously this isn't the main way underage drinkers get a hold of alcohol. More often than not they have an older friend or sibling who makes purchases for them. Some may raid their parents' liquor. And in some cases, misguided parents buy booze for their kids and let them consume it in their home.

Ironically, a year before our dealings with that irresponsible liquor store clerk, I had been working at my dad's liquor store in Vallejo. In a quirk of California law, I was too young to buy alcohol but old enough to sell it. We carded everyone who looked under 30, refused to sell to 21-year-olds who tried to buy with a group of teenagers and refused to sell to anyone we observed negotiating with an underage person outside.

It's not difficult for a merchant to do the right thing.

This weekend, many local teens will go to parties and consume alcohol. And most of these kids will have gotten their booze from one of the ways I've mentioned.

But perhaps because of the citing of these stores, a handful of kids won't be able to purchase alcohol this weekend. Maybe they don't have any other source. And perhaps because they can't get drunk, they won't drive drunk and wrap their car around a tree. They won't get into a fight. Maybe they won't be victims of date rape. They won't flirt with alcohol poisoning.

They'll be angry and frustrated that they couldn't get their drink on. But come Monday morning, they'll be alive, healthy, with no arrest record and no trauma to seek therapy for. And that's why we do the stings. Peace.