Focus on enforcing underage drinking laws by Carson City Sheriff’s Office

The Carson City Sheriff’s Office is revamping its Enforcement of Underage Drinking Laws to try to reduce any juvenile alcohol related accidents.

The program is designed to prevent juvenile access to alcohol through business compliance checks, shoulder tap operations and providing alcohol training for Carson City businesses and servers.

“The focus is to keep juveniles away from alcohol and do that through working different details for alcohol enforcement such as parties, large gatherings at the school or other events that may have large juvenile presence,” said School Resource Officer Jarrod Adams.

Adams is the deputy in charge of spearheading the operation, after being reassigned to the SRO program in Carson Middle School.

The program has been underground for about a year, after the underage enforcement program duties were transferred to the School Resource Officers. However, Sheriff Ken Furlong said that because the department struggled with staffing and direct support, it struggled to meet the number of enforcement activities per month.

Now with Adams being hired as the newest SRO, enforcement duties were assigned to him.

“It was by chance that one of the best Enforcement of Underage Drinking Laws officers has been assigned to the schools now,” Furlong said.

The Enforcement of Underage Drinking Laws activities will include compliance checks, where underage students will go into businesses that sell alcohol and attempt to buy alcohol using their real IDs; shoulder checks, where students will ask people on the street to buy them alcohol using their real ages; and the server training, which is offered free to any business in conjunction with Partnership Carson City for how to properly check IDs and serve alcohol. These trainings will be held every few months.

“It is to make it so businesses don’t sell alcohol to minors and decrease their ability to get alcohol,” Adams said.

During these various checks, anyone caught selling alcohol to minors will receive a $642 fine and if it’s in a business, the establishment will also have a fine on top of that.

A program like this is positive for the community because when alcohol related crimes are reduced, several other community issues are reduced as well.

“I am very much excited to start this program again, I was involved in similar ones several years ago so I am excited to get back and involved because I think it is beneficial,” Adams said. “We can see a decrease in juvenile alcohol related incidents when this program is active. It significantly reduces juvenile intoxication and that reduces violent crimes, vandalism and other problems in the community.”

The students involved in the various details are all volunteers, usually invited by Partnership Carson City or if a student expresses and interest to one of the SROs, with parent consent.

“I am just excited to get to work with the kids again and to be able to make an impact in preventing juvenile alcohol abuse,” Adams said.