Police Department Awarded Underage Alcohol Enforcement Grant

The Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security's Highway Safety Division has selected the Burlington Police Department to receive nearly $5,000 in funding as part of their Underage Alcohol Enforcement Program.

The money is available for local departments to use in their activities designed to decrease access to alcohol by underage youth. These activities include compliance checks, party patrols and surveillance patrols.

During a compliance check, we send a person under 21 into a retail liquor store or restaurant in an attempt to purchase alcohol with no identification. We follow strict guidelines for this activity as prescribed by the Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission. In a nutshell, it means that we can't use any deception to trick a server or seller into providing alcohol to the underage operative. What we are really testing here is the server's willingness to ask for identification for anyone that remotely seems underage. Since the operative is often 19 or 20 years old, there should never be any question about asking for identification.

A party patrol is a dedicated patrol for breaking up underage drinking parties and for enforcement of underage drinking laws.

Surveillance patrols, in conjunction with the other programs, involve surveillance in areas of suspected underage drinking, such as sporting events or in parking lots and these also result in enforcement of underage drinking laws.

The grant period runs through May 31, 2009.