Dangerous

disregard


Ninety-eight percent of parents do not believe their teenager has consumed alcohol in the past 30 days.

Thirty-eight percent of teenagers report drinking alcohol during the past month.

That’s a 60 percent discrepancy in reality.

Teenagers are drinking. Parents don’t know it. And merchants are selling booze to kids.

A four-month undercover operation found that stores in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford counties sold more alcohol to minors than any other counties participating in the study. Half of the stores surveyed violated state law by selling alcohol to the Maine Bureau of Liquor Enforcement’s underage buyers, surprising bureaucrats who thought merchants would be more respectful of the legal age limit.

It’s outrageous that stores either don’t ask for identification or simply don’t care. More outrageous is that undercover police officers were watching the illegal sales and issued warnings to merchants instead of charging them with a crime that could have resulted in a $1,500 penalty and potential loss of a liquor license.

Unenforced liquor laws are worthless and cheats will take advantage for a buck.

The Bureau of Liquor Enforcement will lose its investigators next month in a budget cutting measure, leaving enforcement to the Maine Office of Substance Abuse, an agency without law enforcement authority. Some clerks said they sold to minors because they thought enforcement was already gone.

We can only guess how many others will willfully violate the law once enforcement disappears.

A $100,000 federal grant funded the bureau’s investigation. Had fines been levied against store owners for their criminal misconduct as the law intends, Maine would have drawn revenue that could then be used for enforcement, including annual surveys to spot-check illegal sales.

Teenagers drink. Some 65 percent of them admit it.

Most parents don’t know it and some merchants are profiting from illegal sales. Worse, some merchants are knowingly putting us all in danger.

While some teens may be walking to convenience stores to buy beer, many of them are driving. Then they’re drinking and driving.

Merchants have to take responsibility for that and there has to be a significant threat that illegal sales will be uncovered and punished.

Perhaps the state’s $1,500 fine for selling alcohol to minors is too low. Perhaps it ought to rise to $2,000 for the first offense, $5,000 for the second and on up. That revenue could then be used by the Maine Office of Substance Abuse to enforce the law.

The more active the enforcement, the greater the revenue stream and the safer we will be.


L-A is tops


While great to be formally recognized, no one has to tell folks already living in or near the Twin Cities that these are livable cities.

Relocate-America – an online realty service – has listed Lewiston-Auburn as one of the 100 best places to live, right alongside Bethesda, San Francisco, New Orleans, Bozeman and West Palm Beach.

Towns were picked based on community involvement, schools, home prices and livability.

Portland, Bangor and Orono were also named to the top 100, making Maine one of the most frequently mentioned states on the list.

The Twin Cities have been recognized by Money magazine, Industry Week and John Muir Publications for desirability, manufacturing strength and arts, respectively, in the past decade.

The continued attention to Lewiston-Auburn’s desirability is cause for boastful smiles. We are living what others can only dream of.
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