Newspaper sets up sting in Minnesota
June 7th, 2006
The St. Paul Pioneer press on Monday reported a series of underage stings that the newspaper “Watchdog” group set up in the state of Minnesota. As you recall, Minnesota recently lifted their ban on Internet wine sales. The details of what exactly happened in the five different stings are a little vague in this article, but I’ll attempt to summarize.
This was not a sting in the true sense as police were not involved. Beer, wine, and vodka were ordered online from both retailers and a winery, and violations were found in four cases out of five. In two cases, alcohol was delivered to minors. In the first case, the package was properly labeled as containing alcohol but UPS delivered the package to the teenager anyway. In the second case, the online retailer did not properly label the package as containing alcohol and UPS had “no way of telling the contents from looking at the box”. The only shipment that originated from a winery did not end up in the hands of a minor. FedEx denied the minor access to the wine package that was properly labeled. The two other shipments were violations in that beer and spirits are prohibited from being shipped into Minnesota from out of state.
So, what do we learn from all of this? First of all, the article sums it up well when they say:
Getting the alcohol into the right hands is a dual responsibility: The shipper must put stickers on the box declaring that there’s alcohol inside and that the person who signs for the box must be 21 or older; the delivery company can hand over the package only to customers who can prove they’re at least 21.
Second, there are a number of groups that are trying to raise awareness of the dangers of buying wine online. The visibility of offsite wine purchasing is already high and events like this will do nothing but increase that visibility. States have put safeguards in place to prevent this from happening, but in some states these laws are not yet well enforced.
Michigan recently set a new precedent by requiring that wineries perform age verification at the time of transaction on top of requiring the common carriers to make sure that the recipient is 21 upon delivery. The age verification at the time of transaction can be done by either checking the driver’s license and taking a photocopy as proof or by using an approved electronic age verification vendor. Although Michigan has not yet finalized the details of how they will enforce these new laws, they will likely set a new bar for states that want to better enforce age verification.
