Jose Kiyoshi, Tinian Alcohol Beverages Tobacco Control division officer, said the decoy program has been recognized by various agencies as an “excellent method to attack the problems associated with the unlawful purchase and consumption of alcoholic beverages by young people.”
However, he said the CNMI Alcohol Act Law does not give the commerce department’s ABTC division the authority to implement the program.
“Currently we are working closely with our elected leaders to pass the needed law for the department to implement this program,” Kiyoshi said.
Under the minor decoy program, ABTC and local law enforcement agencies will use persons under 20 years old as decoys to purchase alcoholic beverages from licensed premises.
Kiyoshi said the decoy either carries his own identification showing the correct date of birth, or will carry no identification.
A decoy who carries identification will present it when required to any seller of alcoholic beverages, and will answer truthfully any question about his age.
Kiyoshi, said a California court ruling in 1994 stated that employing a minor decoy is not entrapment and will not violate due process requirement.
“If the minor decoy is used on a regular basis the percentage of licensees selling to minor will drop dramatically,” Kiyoshi said.
From 1998 to 1999, a total of 641 minor decoy operations were conducted by local law enforcement agencies in California.
Of the 6,822 visits made to licensed businesses, 1,396 sold to decoys for a 20.46 percent violation rate.
He said after the California Supreme Court ruled in 1994 that minor decoys could be used by law enforcement to check whether stores were selling alcohol to minors, the violation rate dropped by nearly 50 percent.
The program, Kiyoshi said, will help local law enforcement agencies deter illegal selling alcohol to minors.
One of the ABTC division’s goals is to reduce underage consumption of, and access to, alcohol by deterring adults from furnishing the youth with these beverages, he said.
Kiyoshi said they also intend to expand the involvement of local law enforcement in enforcing underage drinking law while raising public awareness about the problem.
