TPG Online Daily

Responsible Alcohol Merchant Awards

Michael Oppenheimer

73 Business Owners Recognized As Responsible Alcohol Merchants

Merchant Awards Times Publishing Group Inc tpgonlinedaily.comSanta Cruz County Friday Night Live Partnership youth announced the winners of the 16th Annual Responsible Alcohol Merchant Awards (RAMA) Program. RAMA recognizes Santa Cruz County alcohol merchants who actively work to restrict alcohol sales to minors and are compliant with alcohol beverage control regulations. This year, we are pleased to recognize 73 business owners.

Underage drinking costs the United States $62 billion in 2010. These costs include medical care, work loss, and pain and suffering associated with the multiple problems resulting from the use of alcohol by youth. This translates to a cost of $1,811 per year for each youth in the State.

Excluding pain and suffering from these costs, the direct costs of underage drinking incurred through medical care and loss of work costs California $2.9 billion each year. Underage drinking in the United States leads to substantial harm due to traffic crashes, violent crime, property crime, unintentional injury, and risky sex.

Youth violence (homicide, suicide, aggravated assault) and traffic crashes attributable to alcohol use by underage youth in California represent the largest costs for the State at $3.75 billion. For this reason, Friday Night Live youth have partnered with alcohol retailers to actively discourage and limit youth access to alcoholic beverages.

To directly address the issue of underage sales FNL youth conduct on-site evaluations with merchants to assess their carding and training procedures, store layout and security measures to deter theft, and asked all participating merchants to sign and prominently display a “Merchant Committed” pledge that demonstrates the merchant’s dedication to not provide alcohol to youth.

Merchants who met the highest grading criteria in all areas, and have a clean Alcoholic Beverage Control record are being recognized as Exemplary Merchants. The merchants, who met a majority of the requirements and have a clean ABC record, are recognized as Honorable Merchants. First year winners receive a certificate and multi-year winners receive a plaque to display that illustrates their commitment to preventing underage drinking to their patrons as well as encourage the employees to continue their responsible practices.

RAMA is a program of Santa Cruz County Friday Night Live Partnership and Project CURB (Communities United to Reduce Bingeing), and is supported by Community Prevention Partners Collaborative. Funding for this program was provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. For additional information, please contact us at 454-5483.


Sincere congratulations and thanks to each of these merchants for making Santa Cruz County a safer place for our youth.

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2016 Responsible Alcohol Merchant
Exemplary Award Winners & Merchant Honorable* Award Winners

Capitola – Soquel

Santa Cruz

Maggie McGonigle, Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency Alcohol and Drug Program Health Program Specialist- Friday Night Live. 1400 Emeline Ave. Santa Cruz (831) 454-4974 www.fridaynightlive.org

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