According to police, more than a dozen Windham gas stations, convenience stores and supermarkets were the targets of a special kind of sting operation last week designed to catch stores selling alcohol to minors.

While police said most of the stores passed with flying colors on April 2, some didn’t. But, police said, all learned the lesson that selling alcohol to minors is unacceptable and will be prosecuted.

“Seventeen Windham businesses that sell alcohol were checked using an undercover purchaser between the age of 18 and 20 years old,” Windham Lt. David DeGruchy said. “Of the 17 businesses checked, three sold alcohol to the underage purchaser. After each check, the business was informed of what had transpired and the result.”

DeGruchy said the three establishments that violated the law will be documented and their case forwarded to the Maine Department of Liquor Licensing for review and possible administrative action.

The sting was one of several conducted this year by area law enforcement working with college students going undercover to expose stores that sell alcohol to minors. The program is funded by a federal grant that nine Maine colleges and universities are participating in to reduce alcohol consumption of college students. Colleges around Maine are taking part in the grant including University of Maine at Orono, Bowdoin College, Thomas College, Maine Maritime Academy as well as Saint Joseph’s College in Standish.

“We are in the second year of a two-year federal grant that is aimed at trying to find ways to reduce high risk alcohol use,” said David Lischer, coordinator of training, outreach, and prevention services at Saint Joseph’s.

Like the other eight institutions, St. Joseph’s received $50,000 to study its student population’s use of alcohol and also to fund education efforts to reverse rising alcohol consumption rates among students. The first year was devoted to getting accurate information about student’s use of alcohol The goal during the second year is to develop strategies to reduce high risk alcohol use.

“The grant has two primary focuses,” Lischer said. “One is something we call social norming. Most students overestimate what their peers are doing. By first studying their behavior and then finding ways to publicize those findings around campus, we can correct the students’ misconceptions, and they’ll feel more comfortable to act more in accordance with what in fact is reality.”

The other focus the college has is “environmental management.” This is where partnering with local law enforcement comes into play. By getting at a significant cause of alcohol consumption by minors – liquor stores that are lax in checking for identification – colleges realize they can effectively reduce the supply of alcohol.

“We’ve had fairly regular meetings with Windham P.D. and Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office as part of this coalition partnership and decided to do some retail stings to educate stores how vitally important it is to check ages,” Lischer said. “By getting these establishments to crack down on underaged buyers, we will make it at least harder for some students to access alcohol.”

Students in the law enforcement program at Southern Maine Community College have volunteered to enter the stores and purchase beer and wine. If liquor is successfully purchased, police who were sitting outside in a waiting car would serve the store a liquor license violation.

Jeff Austin, supervisor of liquor licensing for Maine Department of Liquor Licensing, said each Windham location that is shown to have sold alcohol to minors will see fines of at least $485, possibly more if they’ve had prior violations.

“Absolutely we’re handing down fines,” Austin said. “There’s no such thing as a warning. We work very hard to crack down on businesses that sell to minors and the way we do that is to levy fines. We consider this serious business and do everything we can.”

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