Hudson County Coalition for a Drug-Free Community has been featured in the Jersey Journal for our ongoing efforts to reduce underage drinking in Hudson County!  See below for the article or click here.

Put to test for second year, how did Bayonne liquor stores fare on ID checks?

Bayonne liquor stores are getting better about checking customers’ identification, but there is still work to be done, according to study down by the Hudson County Coalition for a Drug-Free Community (HCCDFC).

Since 2013 the HCCDFC has chosen a day geared around a popular holiday or big event to conduct a mini sting on liquor stores to investigate if they are properly checking IDs on their young clientele.

The organization sends out a person who is old enough to purchase alcohol to 10 liquors stores in a municipality — in this case Bayonne, a few days before the Super Bowl. The person sent by the HCCDFC is always outfitted in a college sweatshirt to indicate they may be too young to purchase liquor.

The legal drinking age is 21 and if a store is cited four times for serving alcohol to a person under 21, the liquor license may be revoked.

In 2017, seven of 10 liquor stores visited prior to Super Bowl Sunday failed to check the ID of the HCCDFC volunteer. This year, also prior to the Super Bowl, only four of the same 10 stores failed to check the person’s identification, a significant improvement.

The HCCDFC has prioritized underage drinking as a major public health concern because of some of its obvious consequences — violence, driving while intoxicated, alcohol poisoning and high-risk behavior.

HCCDFC officials said it hopes the informal assessment continues to promote the need to implement a policy of checking ID on any customer who appears to be under the age of 30.

Along with local police departments, the Hudson County Coalition offers free Techniques of Alcohol Management (TAMs) trainings to liquor store owners and employees. The training is nationally recognized as the leading program for responsible serving.

The HCCDFC first began the initiative in 2013. At that time there was a 73 percent ate of noncompliance among the randomly selected stores in the communities of West Hudson. By 2015, the nincompliance rate had dropped to 21 percent.

For more information about the Hudson County Coalition for a Drug-Free Community, please visit our website at www.hudsoncountycoalition.org.