WWL is reporting that The Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control announce that agents issued nearly 900 citations to establishments in the state for selling alcohol and tobacco to minors as a result of their 2014 Summer Crackdown operation.

According to the ATC, statistics show an increase in teen drinking. Commissioner Troy Hebert says this is the second year in a row that his office has performed a summer operation.

"About 14 percent of the businesses we sent an undercover operative in actually sold," he reported.

ATC says they performed over 6,500 compliance checks during the operation.  Hebert says in most cases it's the clerk, not  the business owner, illegally selling to under age customers. Hebert says it's fairly easy to tell if someone is a minor in Louisiana since their driver's licenses are printed vertically.

"Probably half of the individuals we cited did not even take the time to even check the ID, much less figure out how old they were.  And that is alarming and it is certainly unacceptable."

Hebert says fines start at $500 and he's fined businesses as much as $25,000 for repeat offenses.  He says there was no particular region of the state that had a significantly higher percentage of citations than any other.

 

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