Underage youth continue to be over-represented in alcohol-related crashes. To reduce illegal sales, training for servers was needed. Discussions with a local fast food restaurant in Holland, Michigan revealed that employees had noted a large number of underage alcohol violations in vehicles using the fast food takeout window between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 4:00 a.m. This perception of underage violations provided a secondary focus for the project: creating a partnership with fast food establishments allowed officers to observe underage alcohol violations in the target group for enforcement purposes.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

To reduce illegal sales of alcohol, authorities agreed:

• To make an impact on underage drinking violations in the Holland, Michigan community, thus saving lives and reducing injuries
• To develop partnerships with alcohol-serving establishments in the community for server training and underage alcohol violation enforcement
• To provide targeted enforcement and resulting deterrence for underage alcohol consumption in the target population.

STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES

The strategy followed these steps:

• The Holland Police Department made contacts with the management of fast food establishments
• Police officers were placed at the takeout windows of fast food establishments
• Officers observed underage alcohol violations and relayed this information to nearby uniformed police personnel (on each occasion, this operation was conducted for two to three hours)
• Uniformed officers investigated the reports and took appropriate enforcement actions.

RESULTS

This project was conducted three times, with an average of three to six arrests made per session. In a three-hour time span the first time it was conducted, three arrests for DUI, one for an open container violation, and one for drug possession were made. Partnerships with alcohol-serving establishments were formed, and a council of vendors started.