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Strategies & ApproachesReduce Availability › Regulate Home Delivery and Internet/Mail Order Sales

Regulate Home Delivery and Internet/Mail Order Sales

Ten percent of 12th graders and 7% of 18- to 20-year-olds in 15 Midwestern communities reported that they obtained alcohol through delivery services from liquor stores in 2005. Use of delivery services was more prevalent among young males and more frequent, heavier drinkers. Underage youth may also order alcohol off the Internet and have it shipped to their home (although purchasing alcohol over the Internet may involve high shipping costs, a credit card and delayed delivery).

Home delivery restrictions regulate liquor stores that offer delivery of alcoholic beverages to personal residences. A home delivery policy may:

  • Prohibit or ban the delivery of alcohol to residential addresses, or
  • Place restrictions on home deliveries.

Banning or restricting home deliveries may be part of a local ordinance or a state law. Communities that do not want to completely ban home deliveries can impose the following restrictions:

  • Require that delivery personnel be age 21 years or older.
  • Restrict the days of the week and times of the day during which alcohol can be delivered to residential addresses.
  • Restrict the amount of alcohol that can be delivered.
  • Require delivery people to verify, via a legal age identification card, that the buyer is 21 or older, and also require the delivery person to document:
    • The name of the purchaser;
    • The purchaser's address and driver's license or state identification card number;
    • The time, date, place of delivery;
    • The quantity and brand of alcohol delivered, and
    • The name of the delivery person.

Alcohol outlets should be required to keep these invoices for a period of time and should be required to make them available to law enforcement authorities upon request.

  • Prohibit sales of alcohol through the Internet by banning direct shipments of alcohol to personal residences.
Issue Alcohol establishments oppose home deliveries laws because it would limit their business opportunities.

Strategy

Because home delivery regulations may decrease alcohol sales to youth, regulating home deliveries may ultimately protect alcohol establishments from criminal and civil liability. Furthermore, the invoice system provides alcohol establishments with a mechanism for monitoring their employees when they are off the premises making a home delivery.

For additional strategies and approaches for changing policies, see the following:

What You Can Do: Community
What You Can Do: Parents
What You Can Do: Agencies
What You Can Do: Schools

References:
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