A grant from the Alcohol Beverage Control is helping to finance an educational and enforcement project to curb underage drinking in Lyon County.
The grant for $3,485 was awarded to the Lyon County Sheriff’s Department. An educational meeting, which will be open to the public, will be the first in a series of activities planned in conjunction with the grant, according to Deputy Pat Stevenson.
Stevenson said that sheriff’s deputies made 40 arrests for underage drinking in 2006 and has made 57 so far this year. The grant will allow the county to step up its efforts to educate and enforce.
“Basically, we’re just trying to get a handle on underage drinking in the county,” he said.
ABC agents Jim Spence and Wayne Weible will make the presentation at the meeting, which will begin at 7 p.m. Dec. 18, in the basement of the sheriff’s department.
“Personal invitations have been sent out to all cereal malt beverage and retail liquor license-holders in Lyon County, so there’s 80-plus of them,” Stevenson said. “Hopefully, we’ll get a good response.”
Spence and Weible will update license-holders on current alcohol laws that regulate their business and will provide training on how to recognize fake IDs.
County Attorney Marc Goodman, City Attorney Laura Miser, and local law enforcement officers also will be present to answer questions about enforcement and prosecution.
“This is the kickoff,” Stevenson said. “Then we’re going to get into the school systems, trying to get parents and kids to come together to meetings.”
The meetings will be done in cooperation with Emporians for Drug Awareness.
Those who don’t grasp the legal concepts from the educational presentations may have an opportunity to learn them from the Party Patrol, the enforcement side of the effort to stop underage drinking.
“We’re going to try to find them and charge them,” Stevenson said.