September 21, 2022 Vol. 37 |
The National Liquor Law Enforcement Association (NLLEA) is a non-profit association
of law enforcement personnel dedicated to the enforcement of liquor laws and regulations.
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To renew your NLLEA Agency Membership for 2022-23 go to www.nllea.org and log in with your email and password. Click on my agency, (right below your name) that will take you to your agency page, then click on renew membership, it is a purple button in left corner, then enter your credit card information and hit submit. If you do not remember your password click on Forgot Password and you will be emailed a temporary one. If you have any problems at all just call Carrie Christofes, Executive Director at 724-762-5939 and she will take your payment over the phone. | |
NLLEA Conference September 26-28 Pittsburgh, PA
Registration is $500.00 for members and $650.00 for non-members
NLLEA Conference is a professional law enforcement event, open to NLLEA members, qualified non-members, public health professionals and exhibitors
Check out the conference agenda below listing all workshops, speakers and exhibitors!
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OR-OLCC Minor Decoy Activity Returns After Pandemic Prolonged Hiatus
Inspectors from the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission (OLCC) are again fanning out across the state checking to see if OLCC licensees are allowing minors to purchase alcohol, and so far the results are disappointing. In two recent Minor Decoy Operations (MDOs) in the Eugene region, about two out of three retailers failed to properly check identification and sold alcohol to an OLCC minor decoy. The combined compliance rate for the Eugene MDOs was 35%. “The state has never seen these kinds of terrible results in alcohol sales compliance checks since the program was initiated in the 1990’s,” said Steve Marks, OLCC Executive Director. “Every licensee that engages in the sale of alcohol needs to immediately place a priority on the proper training of servers and store clerks.” The resumption of the MDO activity comes after the OLCC temporarily idled the program because of other pandemic priorities which coincided with the curtailment of in-person activities at licensed bars, restaurants and other alcohol retailers. Also, prior to the start of the pandemic the agency had difficulty recruiting volunteer decoys. In restarting the program, the agency has carried out a total of five regional operations across the state checking compliance at 64 locations selling alcohol. Two MDOs in Portland produced compliance rates of 70% and 85% and a single MDO in the Salem region resulted in a compliance rate of 88%, which is the best result so far. At this point, the statewide compliance rate is 63% since the MDO activity started again. OLCC’s objective is to have 90% or more of its licensees in compliance. Individual MDO reports containing more details can be found on the OLCC website. Inspectors from the OLCC’s Marijuana Program are also ramping up MDO activity, and recently completed an operation in the Medford region that resulted in a 67% compliance rate.
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Prosecutors allege an inside job. The target? Rare bourbon.
Rob Adams allegedly promised bourbon fans something most could not get: easy access to the good stuff.
The nation has been on a decade-long bourbon binge, making the rarest bottles increasingly unobtainable. Aficionados drive cross-country, shell out thousands and have even traded boats for brown water.
“Right now my group members know exactly where Weller 107 is going to be dropping Monday and Tuesday. No one else knows this but me,” Adams teased members of a bourbon group on Facebook in a message obtained by The Washington Post. “I have inside sources...I’m offering 100% moneyback guarantee.”
The price for details about which state-run liquor stores in Virginia would get the hot bottle? $20 a month, according to the Facebook post.
It was, prosecutors allege, a true inside job.
In an unusual criminal case unfolding outside Richmond, a former employee of the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority (ABC) has admitted to working with Adams to sell distribution information that would allow bourbon fans to scoop up the limited supply of choice bottles.
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NTSB wants all new vehicles to check drivers for alcohol use
The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending that all new vehicles in the U.S. be required to have blood alcohol monitoring systems that can stop an intoxicated person from driving.
The recommendation, if enacted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, could reduce the number of alcohol-related crashes, one of the biggest causes of highway deaths in the U.S.
The new push to make roads safer was included in a report released Tuesday about a horrific crash last year in which a drunk driver collided head-on with another vehicle near Fresno, California, killing both adult drivers and seven children.
NHTSA said this week that roadway deaths in the U.S. are at crisis levels. Nearly 43,000 people were killed last year, the greatest number in 16 years, as Americans returned to roads after pandemic stay-at-home orders.
Early estimates show fatalities rising again through the first half of this year, but they declined from April through June, which authorities are hoping is a trend.
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Alcoholic drinks need stronger – and larger – warnings about cancer risk, doctors say
Current labels stress the dangers of drinking and driving, but nearly 70% of Americans don't realize beer, wine and liquor are linked to various forms of cancer
The health risks associated with alcohol consumption are well-documented, but some scientists say that warning labels affixed to alcoholic beverages are not worded strongly enough to properly educate consumers about their increased cancer risks.
The labels, which have not been updated since the late 1980s, are vague about the potential health risks of alcohol, particularly the increased likelihood of cancer, a pair of doctors argued in an article published by the New England Journal of Medicine earlier this month.
Dr. Anna H. Grummon, of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, and Dr. Marissa G. Hall, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, noted that alcohol consumption accounts for 140,000 deaths each year in the United States. Yet, data suggests about 70% of Americans are not aware that drinking alcohol increases their risk of several forms of cancer, including those of the breast, head, neck, esophagus, liver and colon.
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NHTSA Early Estimates Show Overall Increase in Roadway Deaths in First Half of 2022, Second Quarter 2022 Projects First Decline Since 2020
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today released its early estimates of traffic fatalities for the first half of 2022. An estimated 20,175 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes, an increase of about 0.5% as compared to 20,070 fatalities NHTSA projected for the first half of 2021. However, NHTSA projects that the second quarter of 2022, from April to June, had the first decline in fatalities after seven consecutive quarters of year-to-year increases in fatalities that began in the third quarter of 2020.
"Traffic deaths appear to be declining for the first time since 2020, but they are still at high levels that call for urgent and sustained action. These deaths are preventable, not inevitable, and we should act accordingly," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. "Safety is our guiding mission at the Department of Transportation, and we will redouble our efforts to reduce the tragic number of deaths on our nation’s roads."
In January, Secretary Buttigieg unveiled the National Roadway Safety Strategy, which outlines the Department’s comprehensive approach to significantly reducing serious injuries and deaths on highways, roads and streets. President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provides unprecedented funding for safety to achieve the Department’s ambitious, long-term goal of reaching zero roadway fatalities.
"Although it is heartening to see a projected decline in roadway deaths in recent months, the number of people dying on roads in this country remains a crisis," said Ann Carlson, NHTSA’s Acting Administrator. "Now is the time for all stakeholders, including states, local transportation entities, industry, non-profits and others, to leverage the significant funding and tools provided under the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and join with USDOT in implementing the National Roadway Safety Strategy’s safe system approach, so we can turn the tide on years of increasing deaths."
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Utah readies mobile driver’s license rollout
While the technology for the mDL is ready, the challenge is creating an ecosystem of partners who accept the digital ID.
Utah residents will soon be able to get a digitally signed mobile driver’s license (mDL) through the state’s Driver License Division (DLD).
The agency is in the final stages of a pilot test that started in 2021 and involves over 4,000 users of the mDL and five reliant parties, or partner entities, that can digitally verify the licenses, including state-owned liquor stores and the Utah Highway Patrol. The goal, said Ryan Williams, IT/quality assurance manager at DLD, is to announce the availability of the mDL app in Android and Apple app stores in September.
Whereas most people think of a digital license as a photo of their physical card on their smartphone, the mDL has been cryptographically transferred and digitally signed by DLD, the authorizing agency. What’s more, it gives license holders more control over their data because they share only the information the verifying entity needs, rather than all of the personally identifiable information – photo, address, birth date, physical description, license number – that physical licenses have.
For instance, when pilot participants present their mDLs at Harmons Grocery in Utah for age-based alcohol purchases, they can choose to just share their age. That kind of control is a huge draw for many Utah residents, based on feedback Williams said DLD has received.
Educating people about how each data element on an mDL is encrypted and explaining that attempts to change that data will result in a failed verification has been a major aspect of the pilot, Williams said.
“People are surprised about how the transaction happens, how it’s not me showing you my phone and you’re looking at a picture of my license, but it’s actually the encrypted handshake that the phone and the reliant parties make,” he said. “We like to say, ‘It’s not what you show, it’s what you verify.’"
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PepsiCo-Owned Blue Cloud Distribution GM Says, ‘We’re in This for the Long Haul.’
Hard Mtn Dew distributor Blue Cloud Distribution, set up last year by PepsiCo, is currently delivering products in nine states, according to the company. The states are Florida, Tennessee, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia. To date, Blue Cloud Distribution has secured federal alcohol wholesale permits in 31 states. The permits come from the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), which collects federal excise taxes on alcohol and regulates labeling and marketing for alcohol products. Depending on the state, additional alcohol distribution permits could be required by state and county governments. In the US, alcohol beverages are regulated under a “three-tier” system made up of a state-by-state patchwork of regulations that generally prohibit vertical ownership of producers, wholesale distributors, and retailers. PepsiCo’s arrangement with Boston Beer for Hard Mtn Dew, as well as the company’s foray into alcohol distribution has generated tension with US beer distributors and confusion as to the entity’s operating model under the three-tier system. BD spoke with Blue Cloud General Manager Emiliano Di Vincenzo to seek additional clarity and to update progress with both Hard Mtn Dew and Blue Cloud...
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Lawmakers say alcohol on 2023 session agenda
Powerful state lawmakers are signaling their desire to address New Mexico’s worst-in-the-nation rate of alcohol-related deaths in the upcoming session, including by changing how alcohol is taxed.
Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, chair of the influential Senate Finance Committee, said he supports raising statewide alcohol taxes, among the most effective measures for curbing excessive drinking. Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, agreed the state’s rates “are probably not at the level they need to be,” and raising them “should be part of the solution” to the state’s alcohol crisis.
Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, D-Gallup, chair of the House committee that crafts the state budget, acknowledged “we do not have the balance right” between businesses that profit from selling alcohol and people harmed by consuming it and said in the coming session she expected “legislation to come through that is going to cost money.”
In August, lawmakers on health, criminal justice, and economic committees voiced concern about New Mexico’s alcohol problems. Many attributed the flurry of interest to a New Mexico In Depth investigative series, which showed the state’s alcohol-related death rate has risen continuously for decades and is far above any other state’s.
“I really didn’t realize how bad we were on alcohol deaths until I read all of those articles,” said Stewart. “Obviously we’re not doing enough to counter it.”
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CANNRA Appoints New President, Welcomes New States
Cannabis Regulators Association
CANNRA appointed Tyler Klimas, Executive Director of the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board to serve out Andrew Brisbo’s term as CANNRA president. Brisbo is taking another role in the State of Michigan as Director of the Bureau of Construction Codes, and thus is no longer eligible to stay on in his role with CANNRA. Klimas has been serving as Treasurer on the CANNRA board since shortly after the organization’s founding. The board appointed Chris Tholkes, Director of the Office of Medical Cannabis in Minnesota to assume the position as CANNRA Treasurer. A new board member-at-large will be elected by CANNRA’s Voting Members – who are the primary designees to CANNRA from member states – at a meeting later in September.
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National Highway Traffic Safety (NHTSA) Fall 2022 Impaired Driving Update | | | | | |