PARIS – Three stores in the SAD 55 school district area sold alcohol to a minor earlier this month, according to the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office.

Stores in Fryeburg, Lovell and Bridgton sold alcohol to the teen girl, Chief Deputy Dane Tripp said.

In all, 21 stores in the towns of Fryeburg, Bridgton, Lovell, Denmark, Cornish, Porter and Parsonfield were tested. Eighteen were in compliance with liquor regulations.

Tripp said the sales checks were done with the help of an 18-year-old Sacopee Valley High School student who attempted to purchase alcohol at each of the stores. A plainclothes officer from the Fryeburg Police Department was also in the store when she made the attempt.

“If the transaction went according to the law, they turned around and left,” Tripp said.

If the student was able to purchase alcohol, the officer approached the clerk to tell him about the test.

Tripp said information on the alcohol sales was turned over to Larry Sanborn, an inspector with the liquor licensing and compliance division of the Maine Department of Public Safety. Sanborn was unavailable for comment.

“It was very well-received,” said Tripp of the test. “The people who were in compliance were very pleased that their employees had done the right thing.”

Jeff Morrill, SAD 55’s Safe Schools, Healthy Students Initiative substance abuse and mental health coordinator, said the idea for compliance checks came from a late-winter meeting between administrators and the Sheriff’s Office. He said he worked with Deputy Joshua Wyman, the school resource officer, to organize the test.

Tripp said he had received complaints about stores in the area selling alcohol to minors. Morrill said the complaints, which included one from a mother who said her 14-year-old son was able to purchase alcohol, prompted the decision to have compliance checks.

Morrill said the checks were an extension of awareness-and-prevention programs held at the school during April and May. That included Project Sticker Shock, a program of the Maine Office of Substance Abuse which places stickers in stores to warn of the consequences of providing alcohol to underage buyers. Morrill said the stickers remind customers and clerks of the risks.

“We had done a pretty extensive prevention program for prom and graduation this year,” he said.

Tripp said a person who provides alcohol to minors faces up to a $250,000 civil liability penalty if the alcohol leads to any sort of fatal accident.

“There would be a lot of ramifications,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Office conducts other compliance checks, such as those to test for seat-belt use, but Tripp said he believes this is the first time it has conducted an alcohol compliance check. He said tests can be done with minimal effort and cost, and will likely happen again.

“If we save one person,” said Tripp, “then all those man hours were worth it.”