The results are in.
Over the holiday weekend, Project Extra Mile and local law enforcement agencies teamed up to conduct random checks on businesses to ensure they’re not selling alcohol to minors.
254 checks were completed in Sarpy and Douglas counties from April 1 and May 27.
Officers conducting the checks select a few underage teens from around the area to go into the businesses – stores, restaurants and bars to see if they can buy alcohol.
The results released Tuesday show 26 businesses did not comply with the law – that’s 10 percent of the businesses checked. That number is up from last year’s six percent, and the highest rate of selling alcohol to minors in the metro area in three years.
"It's a little alarming that youth are having a little higher access to alcohol,” said Scott Linderer, executive director for Project Extra Mile, a nonprofit that aims to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harms from youth. “'We did these checks in coordination with prom and graduation, so we checked all the areas when prom and graduation were going on in those areas, and it's definitely concerning to know that youth had access to alcohol at ten percent of the businesses that were checked."
Out of the 26 businesses that failed the compliance checks, nine businesses were repeat violators.
The results also show 58 percent of the businesses that failed the checks did not check IDs before selling alcohol to youth, while 42 percent of those businesses did.
Linderer says the spike in failed compliance checks is reason enough to do more of the unexpected checks on businesses.
"Obviously with the higher non-compliance rate that we've seen in three years, we'll want to go back and try and have checks again soon. The key is to have checks as soon as possible, just so that people are on their toes, and know that they really need to check IDs,” said Linderer.
For a complete list of the compliance check operation results, click here.
