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Area group helps law enforcement combat underage drinking

Area group helps law enforcement combat underage drinking

KSN

by: Stuart Price

February 18, 2020

JOPLIN, Mo. — Area law enforcement needs all the help they can get when it comes to trying to prevent young people from getting their hands on alcohol.

There’s at least one group helping them achieve that goal.

With Spring Break, Prom, and Graduations all around the corner, a local organization is making sure underage drinking isn’t happening.

Stephanie Meek, Safe Kids Coalition, said, “We want to make sure to make sure that our retailers are working hard to keep the alcohol away from the youth in our area while they’re going through these fun times in their spring season.”

Capt. Nick Jimenez, Joplin Police Department, said, “They’ve funded stings we’ve done in the past making sure that places that do sell alcohol are in fact making sure everyone that is buying alcohol are in fact 21 years of age, in conjunction with our “Rise Above” program, our school resource officers try to work with our youth from the very beginning to let them know there’s a reason these laws are in effect and you need to follow them.”

Members of the Safe Kids Coalition gathered together to game plan how to try and prevent tragedy from happening to young people.

Stephanie Meek says education is the key to helping retailers.

“A lot of availability through the Internet for young people to obtain fake ID’s, they come from as far away as China and they’re quite sophisticated and we want to make sure that our retailers are educated about what a true identifier or identification looks like,” said Meek.

Nick Jimenez says it’s not in a clerk’s best interest to sell to minors.

“A there is an expensive fine that is imposed to the employee in the store so we always encourage those employees to take their due diligence and make sure who they’re selling to is in fact 21 years of age,” said Jimenez.