The Upper Peninsula Community Coalitions for Substance Abuse Prevention are working to conduct more compliance check programs as well as collect data that will determine if our educational efforts are resulting in less youth access to alcohol. In late 1990’s and up to 2003, Compliance Checks in the region indicated that nearly 50% of youth were able to purchase alcohol. Our last checks indicated that this has dropped by over 50% to an average sale rate of 22%. Of course this is still too high but progress is being made.

What are compliance checks and how do they work?

A compliance check is a tool to identify alcohol establishments that sell alcohol to underage youth.

Compliance checks can be used for two purposes:

• Enforcement: to enforce state criminal statutes, local administrative ordinances, or both.
• Educational: to identify, warn, and educate alcohol establishments that serve or sell alcohol to underage youth.

Why compliance checks are important for your community

In many communities, youth are able to purchase alcohol at commercial outlets. Several studies show that in communities where there is little or no enforcement, individuals who look younger than age 21 can buy alcohol without showing age identification in 45-50% of their attempted purchases.

Studies show that compliance checks are effective. Two studies from the mid-1990s found that after compliance checks were conducted, sales to underage patrons reduced from 60-80% to 25-30%.