Local Beer Board Recommends $500 Sanctions After Underage Sales at Kroger, Sudden Service

The local beer board on Oct. 3 reviewed results of compliance checks conducted Oct. 27 and recommended sanctions after at least two stores sold alcohol to an underage buyer.

Unidentified Board Officer (Speaker 1) told the board that during the compliance checks a 19-year-old buyer was able to purchase alcohol at Kroger, and that the clerk on duty, identified in the record as Claire Fink, examined the ID multiple times before entering a date that did not match the license. "She actually looked at it. She watched the video. She looked at it for 3 times," Speaker 1 said, describing the purchase. The board was told Kroger had three failed checks that night.

A Kroger representative (Speaker 2) described the company’s training and monitoring procedures, including a two‑hour external training course, internal paperwork acknowledging training, and a system intended to scan the back of IDs rather than manually type dates. The representative said the employee who sold the alcohol had been on the job roughly three weeks and was terminated after the incident. "At no point should they ever type the date in," Speaker 2 said, explaining how a typed date can bypass automated mismatches.

Board members discussed enforcement policy for first offenses and the board’s lookback period. Speaker 1 noted board guidance allowing fines up to $1,000 for certain first offenses but urged that the board’s recommended sanction fit past practice. After discussion, the board voted by voice to recommend a $500 fine for the Kroger incident; the vote was recorded as a voice vote and no roll‑call tally was given.

The board also considered a failure at Sudden Service number 74 (3051 Highway 31 W). Speaker 3 summarized that the operator, Joshua Gallard, failed to identify the correct age on an ID and faces misdemeanor charges in general sessions court. A store representative told the board the register’s scanner failed to register IDs after a recent software upgrade and that an 'IP ticket' documenting the problem was opened; the representative said the employee involved was terminated. By voice vote, the board recommended a $500 fine in that case as well.

Board members discussed how to handle cases where an offending business is no longer operating. Several members favored conditioning any future license application by the same person so that, if the person reapplies for a license within a specified period, the applicant would be required to pay the previously recommended fine or face a higher fine. The board agreed to pursue conditioning future applications in such circumstances.

The board’s actions on enforcement were procedural recommendations recorded in the meeting minutes; the board did not provide numerical vote tallies on the record, and any citations or criminal charges described were noted as having been referred to general sessions court.