Editorial

UNDERAGE CLERKS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO SELL LIQUOR

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A new Missouri law that permits clerks younger than drinking age to sell liquor in stores is an invitation to even more problems in a business that is tough enough to regulate as it is.

The law contradicts the basic reasoning behind 21 being the legal drinking age, and that is that young people are not mature enough to drink alcohol. Why then should clerks 18 through 20 years of age be allowed to sell it when they can't legally drink it or even possess it?

Those who sell and serve alcohol are in a way responsible for those to whom they sell it. By abiding by state liquor laws, they help regulate the sale of liquor by assuring that it is not sold to underage people or those who are intoxicated, which state law prohibits.

A clerk younger than 21 is put in the awkward position of having to ask a customer for proof of age when the clerk himself is not yet 21. The underage clerk also is saddled with having to decide if a customer is too intoxicated to be sold liquor. Refusing to sell to such a person can lead to unpleasant consequences. Young people shouldn't be expected to have to make such decisions.

The Missouri Association of Beverage Retailers, the Missouri Federation of Parents for Drug-Free Youth, Stroh Brewery Co. and others filed a lawsuit challenging the law. In it they argued that allowing clerks under 21 to handle and sell alcohol in stores raised the risk that liquor would be given or sold to others below the state's legal drinking age.

That is solid reasoning. The unscrupulous underage clerk is in a position to sell liquor to his underage friends. Youngsters have gone to far more extremes than to call upon a friend in their efforts to buy alcohol.

Cole County Circuit Judge Thomas Brown rejected another argument of the opponents that the law was adopted by the Legislature this year as part of a bill addressing more topics than the Missouri Constitution permits. Those who filed the suit say they will appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court.

There will be abuses. The Supreme Court should see fit to overturn the ill-conceived law before too many people are harmed by it.