Leonardtown, MD — The St. Mary’s County Alcohol Beverage Board (liquor board) will be taking on a new responsibility. The board agreed at its Feb. 12 meeting, at the request of Alcohol Enforcement Coordinator Cpl. James Stone, to also hear violations of the law prohibiting sales of tobacco to minors.
According to Stone, the board has that authority under the general provisions of the law governing their duties, to include “acts contrary to the law.”
The issue has come up because the St. Mary’s County has received grant monies passed through the health department to do two enforcement efforts involving underage police operatives similar to what they regularly do with alcohol enforcement. Stone said the monies will allow for two “compliance checks” of 30 and 40 businesses each over the next several months.
Stone noted that the enforcement of alcohol and tobacco laws are similar in that they involve checking IDs for 21 in the case of alcohol and 18 in the case of tobacco. “Selling tobacco may be a precedent to selling alcohol,” Stone told the liquor board in citing one reason why they should be involved.
Cpl. Stone checked with two counties, Charles and Montgomery, and found that Montgomery’s liquor board is also involved in tobacco sale enforcement.
Stone emphasized that the liquor board would only be involved in hearing cases for businesses over whom they had authority, namely those holding alcohol licenses from the board. Stone said there also would be compliance checks of stores that don’t have liquor licenses. Those cases would be turned over either to District Court or the Maryland Comptroller’s Office.
Stone said at one time Maryland was good at checking for compliance with tobacco sales, not now they are dead last in the country in those efforts, which apparently prompted the offering of grants to overturn that trend.
Jane Dodds, a health department nurse who attended the liquor board meeting to explain the program, said that like alcohol, tobacco use can be a gateway drug. She said, as a matter of fact, tobacco use was more of a gateway drug for prescription drug abuse.
Dodds said in addition to the enforcement part of the grant, the monies will also be used to educate establishments about how to read IDs to ensure those underage aren’t served.
The liquor board members embraced the idea without dissent. The compliance checks will be done before June 30. Presumably the liquor board will have a round of hearings on a new subject matter after that if the compliance checks uncover violators of the tobacco laws.
Stone said underage selling of tobacco is a misdemeanor in St. Mary’s County subject to a civil penalty or a fine, while in Calvert and Charles it is a felony, which would could lead to jail time.
Contact Dick Myers at dick.myers@thebaynet.com