Welcome to the first issue of our newsletter. We are collaborating with the Minnesota Prevention Resource Center to produce this newsletter which will appear in each issue of Impact!.We will report on the activities of the coalition and others around Minnesota who are working on youth access to alcohol policy issues. We hope you find this information helpful in your efforts to improve the health and safety of the communities you work in!
Coalition work begins
My name is Jeff Nachbar and for those of you who have not yet met me, I am the project director of the Minnesota Join Together Coalition to Reduce Underage Drinking. I began working on this project in April 1997. My previous position was as a Community Crime Prevention Specialist with the Minneapolis Police Department for six years. I was assigned to S.E. Minneapolis neighborhoods around the University of Minnesota and dealt with issues of personal safety, home security, party houses and neighborhood issues. Seven years previous to this I worked in the non-profit and environmental sector in organizing, fundraising and elections. The U of M furnished me with my Bachelors in Individualized Studies in Environmental Studies in Political Science in 1983. My hobbies include fishing, camping and ice hockey. Please feel free to call me at any time.
Minnesota Join Together (MJT) has nearly completed year one of its four year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Together with the Minnesota Institute of Public Health as fiscal agent and lead agency, we have accomplished much in this first year as we began laying the foundation for building a statewide coalition committed to reducing youth access to alcohol. The Coalition, directed by a 17 member governing board made up of adults and youth which has been meeting monthly, has set ambitious goals for the four year program. During the past few months we have successfully begun articulating this vision to organizations and policy makers around the state.
A clear mission!
The mission statement of the coalition reads Minnesota youth, adults and organizations taking action to protect the health and safety of young people and communities by reducing underage alcohol use and its negative consequences. We will accomplish this by working together to change statewide policies and practices regarding youth access to alcohol. While recognizing the importance of a broad spectrum of public health, prevention, treatment and intervention professionals working to help kids make healthy individual choices, we have chosen to narrow our focus strictly to youth access policy. This “supply side” approach puts the responsibility on the providers of alcohol to our young people. Through changes in public policy we hope to change the “environment” that leads to young people having easy access to alcohol. This effort, when combined with all the other important work being done by organizations across Minnesota can have a tremendous impact on the seemingly insurmountable problems created by the abuse of alcohol by young people.
So many choices!
Next we had to determine which of the many possible policies we should work on. Youth gain access to alcohol through one of two sources, either a commercial source (i.e. liquor store, convenience store, bar, restaurant) or a social source (i.e. friend, stranger, party, parent). We then came up with recommendations for reducing access at each of these two sources.
1) Reducing illegal sales to underage buyers through: mandatory compliance checks on all liquor license holders, mandatory administrative penalties leading to license revocation on chronic violators of the law, and an increase in liquor licensing fees to pay for these checks.
2) Changes in statutory law that would allow anyone hurt by an intoxicated underage person to hold the adult provider accountable for the damages caused by the underage drinker.
The third policy objective is to:
3) Maintain the ability of local authorities to set their own alcohol policies that are at least as strong or stronger than state law.
By reducing commercial and social sources of alcohol for underage youth and by protecting “local control” of liquor laws we hope to reduce underage drinking and the problems and negative consequences suffered by all.
Ready, set, action!
The coalition is now shifting its efforts to meet the challenges of implementing these policy changes. Among our top organizational priorities are: organizing and outreach to build a statewide coalition of individuals and organizations that are working on some or all of these issues, conducting a proactive media campaign to raise the awareness of the public and policy makers about underage access to alcohol policy issues, building and developing a meaningful youth advocacy program, and getting our mini-grant program up and running.
The next three years will bring many challenges for MJT and others who hope to impact youth access to alcohol policies in Minnesota. By working together we can have an impact much larger than by working individually. If you or your organization is interested in working on any to these policy issues in your community, give me a call at 612-427-5310 or e-mail me at jnachbar@miph.org.
Citizens group active at the State Capitol
By Sara Veblen-Mortenson.
There is a growing movement in the United States to establish policy and legislative initiatives that make it harder for teens to buy or get alcohol. A group in Minnesota, called Action on Alcohol and Teens - A Citizens’ group (AAT) is part of that movement and is working to improve the health of our communities by reducing alcohol-related problems among youth. This network of citizens organized themselves two years ago and has as its major goals to monitor, support and initiate legislation, ordinances and enforcement efforts that would reduce the availability and use of alcohol by underage persons.
During this past legislative session, AAT was instrumental in its work with several legislators to introduce legislation that would reduce youth access to alcohol. The key components of this bill included: forbids the use of cartoon characters, caricatures or similar materials on labels of cordials and liqueur bottles; mandates two compliance checks in a two year period in each location where alcoholic beverages are sold; mandates training programs for the licensee and all employees who sell or serve alcoholic beverages; and provides for tighter controls on home delivery of alcoholic beverages.
The bill was heard in the Senate Commerce Committee and was passed with a few modifications. In the House, the Business Regulations Committee heard the bill, but due to influence by the alcohol beverage industry the bill did not come out of this committee. The bill is still alive and will continue in the 1998 session.
AAT will be pursuing a variety of legislative and other prevention initiatives during the next year including: legislation to mandate compliance checks in Minnesota; social host legislation; working to avoid pre-emption of local control of alcohol ordinances; considering keg registration; and pursuing a beer/alcohol excise tax increase.
If you are concerned about youth and alcohol and would like to support efforts to reduce youth access, AAT would welcome your participation! For more information on how to get involved with this group, please call our outreach coordinator, Jaime Martinez, at 612-644-4655.
Minnesota Join Together Mini Grants Request for Proposals
By Linda Bosma
The purpose of the MJT Mini Grant Program is to offer small grants to community groups, public health services, law enforcement, coalitions and other organizations to support our statewide policy initiatives at the local level. Each year, the MJT Board of Directors completes a work plan to prioritize its policy efforts. Grant proposals which most effectively support MJT’s work plan will receive priority for funding. While all grants submitted will be considered for approval, applicants are encouraged to submit proposals which will build support for the 1998 priorities (see article by Jeff Nachbar). Among the activities that would be most beneficial in supporting our policy priorities are 1) locally conducted compliance checks at license beverage outlets; 2) projects that target adult providers of alcohol to youth; 3) community organizing to build grassroots support for our policy priorities; 4) locally generated media advocacy in support of our policy priorities; and 5) programs to develop youth advocates who will become active in policy debates.
If this is the first you have heard of our mini grants, we recognize that our timeline is probably too short for you for the first round. To get on the mailing list for our second round of grants which will be announced in early 1998, call Sherri Lincoln.