Alcohol retailers get schooled in the art of prevention
By Carissa Marsh Special to the Acorn

IRIS SMOOT/Acorn Newspapers LIQUOR LESSON- Gary McKinley and Greg Heinrichs of Trader Joe's listen to Kim O'Neil, executive director of Project SAFER, give a presentation during "Responsible Beverage Sales Training," a free event for local alcohol retailers held in the community room at the Simi Valley Town Center on Tuesday.

Local business owners and managers gathered in Simi Valley Town Center's community room on Tuesday to learn the ABCs of responsible alcohol sales.

The Coalition for Simi Valley Youth and Community hosted the free training session to better equip alcohol retailers to spot and deal with underage customers, fake IDs and intoxicated persons.

Kristin Tignac, coalition coordinator, said the training was aimed at helping merchants reduce theft as well as their liability, since they are required to be compliant with Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) laws. As the state's liquor authority, the ABC monitors the actions of license holders.

Most alcohol sales programs are for restaurants that serve alcoholic beverages, but Tuesday's session was specifically designed for off-sale alcohol establishments such as gas stations, mini-marts, and grocery and liquor stores.

"This one's really innovative because it's the first of its kind, and Simi is doing it first," Tignac said.

About 20 management representatives from local stores, including 7-Eleven, Vons, Pavilions, Albertsons and Trader Joe's, came out for the class, which was created by Project SAFER in collaboration with Ventura County Behavioral Health.

Project SAFER is a nonprofit that provides safety assessments for events within the county to enhance public safety and identify public health issues.

While the training benefits the specific outlets that sell alcohol, it also serves the community by reducing the dangerous trend of underage access to alcohol, Tignac said.

When the Simi coalition formed two years ago, it conducted needs assessments and youth focus groups, which determined there is a problem with minors gaining access to alcohol too easily.

A survey by the coalition found that 89 percent of ninth- to 12th-grade students said it was somewhat easy to extremely easy to get alcohol.

"Many teens reported that it's easy to steal alcohol from grocery stores," Tignac said.

Kim O'Neil, executive director of Project SAFER and facilitator of the class, shared some other staggering statistics: Every day more than 5,200 children under 16 take their first drink, while nearly 20 percent of eighth-graders and almost 34 percent of 10th-graders report having had a drink in the past month.

Numbers like these make training sessions for merchants so important, O'Neil said.

"Drinking trends have changed. The intention is really concentrated on getting drunk," she said, "and when alcohol sales are being permitted to people underage, that's against the law. It's a big liability to them and the community. There are just too many incidences of kids getting hurt and their lives change forever. It's just not worth it."

During the threehour seminar, O'Neil covered topics such as civil, criminal and administrative liabilities; a review of ABC laws governing alcohol sales; the latest techniques for proper ID verification; and tactics for refusing alcohol sales to underage or intoxicated customers.

Joelle Wilkerson, a service operations manager for Albertsons, was particularly interested in the last topic. Though she attended the session to get better informed on identifying minors and catching fake IDs, she also wanted to find consistent guidelines for handling intoxicated people who want to purchase more alcohol.

"There are a lot of questions when we have intoxicated people in the store," she said. "It's that fine line of 'Are they drunk?' We can smell it- and I know we can refuse service- but where do we draw the line?"

She said that with prom coming up, training like this is especially important for her younger clerks.

Trader Joe's First Mate Gary McKinley and Capt. Greg Heinrichs attended the class as a "refresher" course, McKinley said, "to see if we knew what we thought we knew."

But like many attendees, McKinley said he was surprised to hear about the alcoholic energy drinks, including brands like Sparks, Joose and Tilt. O'Neil showed a video clip explaining that the problem with these beverages is they often have almost identical packaging as their nonalcoholic versions, leading cashiers to mistakenly sell them to underage customers.

Heinrichs said the season is right to get up-to-date on current training and techniques.

"With the onset of summer, we want to be proactive to any underage kids getting their hands on alcoholic beverages," he said.