Sticker Shock Hopes to Curb Alcohol Sales to Minors
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — It’s that time of year again; the time to decorate. More than 15 students and chaperones from Taconic High School, Pittsfield High School and St. Joseph Central High School are teaming up on Tuesday afternoon to decorate the city’s liquor stores and spirit shops; not with garland, but with stickers. Sticker Shock, a bi-annual event sponsored by the Pittsfield Prevention Partnership, is an effort to raise public awareness about teen alcohol use and abuse in the county. For the campaign, teens armed with stickers (accompanied by a chaperone) will converge on 10 participating liquor stores and decorate cases of alcohol with a very important message: Don’t sell alcohol to minors. The effect of the sticker shock message is twofold, according to PPP coordinator Karen Cole.“The kids enjoy it. It gives them something really constructive to do with their time because it’s a tangible and concrete project,” she said in a phone interview. “It has an impact directly on the kids and it teaches them about being an activist. It is a strategy that’s really aimed at bringing out a big education effort in the community.”
According to Cole, it is the community that is ultimately responsible for the attitudes of its children. In fact, a 2009 Prevention Needs Assessment Survey sponsored in part by the PPP, the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition and the South Berkshire Youth Coalition, revealed that among students in grades 8-12 one of the highest risk factors for alcohol abuse is lack of community involvement and the perception that underage drinking is acceptable.
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“The kids are getting the message that the community is looking the other way,” Cole said. “That underage drinking is the norm of the community. They need to know that the adults in their lives really care about kids staying away from alcohol.”
Raising awareness about underage drinking, especially through the sticker shock campaign, was slow-going at first, according to Cole.
“We really had to convince the store owners that this was a positive thing for the community,” she said. “Now they’re happy to participate. They get acknowledgement for doing the right thing.”
George Garivaltis, owner of West Street Wine and Spirits, is no stranger to sticker shock.
“As long as they’ve been asking us, we’ve been letting them. It’s obviously for a good cause,” he said. “If you’re underage and you’re shopping around the store those stickers will make you think twice about trying to buy something. It’s a good thing. We card everybody who comes in here. If someone doesn’t have an I.D. on them we turn them away.”
It is no coincidence that the sticker shock campaign is happening now. According to Cole, timing is everything and the holidays are the busiest time of year for liquor sales, especially in the Berkshires.
“We do it twice a year,” she said. “Once during the winter holidays and once in May, right before prom and graduation to get kids thinking about it.”
And apparently kids are thinking about it more and more. According to Sara Sumner, co-coordinator (with Jennifer Stokes) for the S.A.D.D. chapter at Pittsfield High School, there is a growing awareness among PHS students that drug and alcohol abuse can lead to long term problems.
“I’m a school adjustment counselor and I work under a substance abuse grant,” she said. “We work with a lot of kids who are alcohol and substance reliant. They already recognize that in themselves, or they get into some kind of trouble because of it. Fortunately, we’re seeing this decreasing a little bit.”
Sumner echoed Cole’s sentiments that the key to eliminating underage drinking is positive adult reinforcement.
“We need for adults to continue the message of discouraging the use of alcohol and drugs in any way,” she said. “They can do this by simply talking to kids about it and by allowing them to participate in after school opportunities so they can do things outside of drugs and alcohol. It really is that simple.”
For more information on the Pittsfield Prevention Partnership visit www.totallyfreeberkshires.org.
