Chapel Hill police crack down on serving to minors

Kathryn Ruff didn’t look at the license closely enough.

A server at Four Corners Grille, she was charged with selling a malt beverage to a minor after an undercover alcohol law enforcement check was held at the Franklin Street bar, along with 46 others in the Chapel Hill area.

“I didn’t know they send people in,” said Ruff, a first-time offender. “Pay attention, because you never know.”

Ruff was one of the 13 servers charged with selling alcohol to minors in the Jan. 7 operation, the latest in an effort to reduce underage drinking in the area.

The Alcohol Law Enforcement Response Team has issued more citations for selling alcohol to minors this year than in all of 2009, the year the group was formed.

Last year, 39 were issued.

“We’re getting stricter on enforcement,” said Chapel Hill Alcohol Enforcement Officer Debbie Timmons.

ALERT was formed in February 2009 by the Chapel Hill Police Department and the Coalition for Alcohol and Drug Free Teenagers of Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

The team, comprised of local police officers, focuses on fighting underage drinking in Orange County.

Lt. Pat Burns, an ALERT coordinator and retired police officer, said the team uses underage customers to go into businesses and attempt to buy alcohol.

The minors use their own IDs, and an undercover officer is also present in the business to witness, he said.

“We don’t like to see it,” Burns said. “We’re not trying to get people out of business.”

Burns said bartenders often rely on the people working the door to check IDs, but they don’t always do it.

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