Next time an innocent-looking teen standing by a supermarket entrance asks you to buy them a six-pack of beer, think before you answer. They might be on the payroll of the Brunswick Police Department (BPD) and, if you answer yes, you might be going to jail.
Early this summer, encouraged by the Office of the Maine Attorney General, the BPD began engaging in undercover sting operations aimed at catching adults willing to buy alcohol for people under the age of 21 in association with other regional law enforcement agencies. After a short hiatus, these operations are recommencing.
According to Brunswick Community Police Officer Terry Goan, the BPD "is going to kind of continue on [with the program] this fall, with Bowdoin students being back."
With these stings, "the idea is to combat the furnishing of alcohol to people who are underage," Director of Safety and Security Randy Nichols explained. "I think college campuses should expect to be targeted by these operations."
Nichols, who served as an officer in the Maine State Police for 27 years, assured students that Bowdoin Security had no intention of engaging in undercover stings to catch alcohol violations.
"Our job here is to prevent alcohol violations from taking place," Nichols said. "We have a positive relationship with the student body and we value that and it's critical to our overall safety to have that," he added.
In an interview with the Orient, Goan explained how the sting operations work. "What we have been doing is getting a decoy?over the summer it has been a female?approaching people who appear to be over 21 at certain stores and basically asking 'Hey, uh, I'm not old enough [to buy alcohol], can you go in and get me some flavors of whatever.'"
So far, the operation has targeted 16 people, five of whom agreed to buy liquor for the police decoy. "That's five more then we would like, but still, not bad," Goan said.
According to Goan, these sting operations, although simple in their execution, are somewhat complex to put together.
"What we have chosen to do in the Midcoast area?us [the BPD], Topsham PD, Bath PD and the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's office?is to have a multi-jurisdictional approach," Goan explained, "because to do a enforcement piece, it takes a few law enforcement people to pull it off."
Because the BPD is not a huge law enforcement agency, it would be difficult to engage in these stings unilaterally.
"But if we pull a guy from each jurisdiction we have five guys," Goan said.
Before the operation, the decoy is wired with a voice recorder. A hidden police officer records a video of the decoy's interactions with adults. "And we also have an officer standing near by in case something happens," Goan said. All the officers are in plain clothes.
"When a violation occurs, what we have chosen to do is allow the person to drive away and then a marked unit, an officer in uniform, goes and stops them a little ways away" Goan said. "We don't want to bring bad publicity to the convenience store or whatever." After pulling the alcohol-buying adult over, the uniformed police officer generally issues the violator a ticket, takes their picture and lets them go. There are exceptions, however.
"Because it is a crime that takes place in our presence, we could actually arrest them and take them. We have chosen not to do that at this point," Goan said. "But if someone has a really bad attitude with police, that could change."
According to Goan, "the attorney general's office, last March or April, decided that, [based upon] statistics of groups throughout the state, there was an issue with underage drinking. As a result they've put it as a priority that they are going to step up enforcement to curb this." Midcoast law enforcement agencies decided to try sting operations because they had been successful elsewhere in the country.
During College House Orientation (CHO), in late August, the Office of Residential Life brought in Officer Goan to speak to some College House residents about Maine state law regarding alcohol. At the end of the session, Goan mentioned that the BPD was looking for volunteers to be a decoy for a sting operation to catch adults who buy alcohol for minors. He left a sheet of paper at the front of the room to get the names of students who were interested in the opportunity. Goan added that volunteers would be paid in the range of about $14 an hour.
"I think it's ridiculous that they are doing this program," said Jeremy Bernfeld '09, a resident of Quinby House who attended CHO. "The fact that the cops are wasting precious resources on these kind of sting operations and paying kids to do this is kind of ridiculous," he added. "This isn't really a heinous crime that you need to go hunting people down for," Bernfeld said, echoing the sentiment of other students on campus.
"I think it's really unfair for the police to ask minors to go and solicit [alcohol] from random townspeople," Darren Fishell '09 said. "I think it would be more fair for them to go to the stores and see if the stores were checking IDs," he added.
According to Goan, however, the BPD sees going after adults as the most effective way to curb underage drinking. Sting operations to catch stores who sell to minors fall under the purview of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department.
"The Attorney General feels that the focus [for local law enforcement] needs to be on adults who are buying for younger people," Goan said. "I know there have been monies available at the sheriff's department's level where they actually give somebody a fake ID and send them in to buy the alcohol. They're going after the establishment, not the person; we're not," he explained. "This particular enforcement piece?the sting operations?is solely to see if adults are going to buy for the underage."
In a telephone interview with the Orient, Captain Donald Goulet of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department explained the department's position on ensuring that stores comply with state laws regarding the sale of alcohol to minors.
"What we've decided, based on studies, is that an educational piece is better than an enforcement piece because a lot of the stores don't understand the laws. After we've done the educational piece within the county, we'll follow it up with enforcement," he said.
Goulet, the captain of the department's Criminal Investigative Division, explained what the enforcement piece might look like. "What they've done in the past is to get kids to go in to attempt to purchase alcohol to see if they are carded," he said. If the store sells them alcohol without checking an ID, the store and the employee who failed to card may face summonses.
Back in Brunswick, Goan does not see the stings as particularly extraordinary operations.
"In the end it's just another program that's out there..." he said. "We try to do a lot of good things for the community. Hopefully this is another."
?Joshua Miller is the Orient's senior investigative reporter.
SIDEBAR: Security to step up alochol enforcement
While Bowdoin's Department of Safety and Security has no intention of engaging in undercover sting operations to combat underage consumption of alcohol, students can expect to see a few changes in Security's alcohol policy this year as a result of stepped-up enforcement statewide.
According to Randy Nichols, oversight of Jack McGee's Pub will be increased to prevent underage drinking. "We will be working very closely with the pub staff and with students attending the pub," he said. "We'll be monitoring the pub very, very closely, making sure IDs are properly checked, and making sure the bartenders fully understand what the consequences of serving underage students are."
Nichols said that students of age sometimes pass alcohol to people who are under 21. "That's a real problem. Students who engage in that practice?of furnishing alcohol to minors?will be dealt with firmly here on campus," Nichols added. If local or state officials catch minors with alcohol in the pub, its liquor license could be revoked. "We don't want to lose our license, so Bowdoin Security's role, along with the staff down at the pub, is making sure all the rules and regulations are obeyed."
Another new Security policy regarding alcohol?developed in concert with the office of Residential Life?is pre-party checks at registered events. "In advance of a party, we're going in and meeting with the alcohol hosts and the event hosts to make sure everything is in place," Nichols said. Security officers check to make sure that the amount of alcohol at the party matches the amount that was registered, that there is adequate food and adequate supervision. "We've taken the step of making sure that there is an event host for every keg. So if it's a three-keg event, there is going to be an alcohol host and three event hosts," he added. "We're getting some very good feedback on these pre-party checks already," Nichols said.
?Joshua Miller
SIDEBAR: AG?s office combats drinking ?crisis?
In March of this year, Steven Rowe, the attorney general (AG) of Maine, visited Mount Ararat High School in Topsham for the first of 23 summits on underage drinking to be held around the state. Over the last few months, Rowe has made curbing underage drinking a top priority. In August, the AG, in association with the Maine Departments of Public Safety and Health and Human Services announced "a new effort to curb underage alcohol sales," according to a press release. "Youth drinking is a major pediatric health crisis that has devastating consequences for our children, communities and economy," Rowe said.
In a telephone interview with the Orient, Special Assistant Attorney General Jessica Maurer explained why underage drinking is a crisis. "There's a lot of new information out there that has not been available until recently in relation to the effects of underage drinking," she said.
"The effects of youth drinking are tremendous and long-term. All of the research that's coming out now?and it seems like it's coming out monthly?suggests consistently that the earlier kids drink the more likely it is that they will become addicted and the more likely it is that they will have long-term cognitive problems related to the drinking," Maurer said. Underage drinking "is an urgent crisis much like when we found out that alcohol had a bad effect on fetuses when pregnant women drink" she added. Youth drinking "is an epidemic which we're trying to get under control," Maurer said.
With regard to enforcement, "the AG has consistently said in his remarks that this is a multi-pronged problem that is going to take that kind of solution," Maurer said. "One of the solutions is in fact that adults don't provide alcohol to minors, because it's a violation of the law. He has initiated public service announcements that say that, in fact."
The attorney general has narrated two public service announcements that are will be airing on Maine radio stations and are currently available on his web site. The PSAs remind adults that "providing alcohol to minors is illegal and can have tragic consequences," according to the site.
?Joshua Miller