That’s what an analysis by The Indianapolis Star found. The Star looked at Excise Police compliance checks and found that liquor stores sold to minors at twice the rate of convenience stores and three times the rate of pharmacies and big-box retailers.
Package stores have been trying to keep their monopoly on cold beer sales by arguing they do a better job of preventing underage drinking than other retailers. The Star analysis suggest that isn’t so.
The Star’s analysis looked at data from 2009 to 2017, a period involving more than 83,000 compliance checks.
The results show:
- Liquor stores failed their compliance checks 9.1% of the time.
- Retailers with grocery licenses, including convenience stores, failed 4.8% of the time.
- Stores with pharmacy licenses — including big-box retailers and traditional pharmacies — failed 2.7% of the time.