Sales to obviously intoxicated patrons at alcohol establishments: What are state and local law agencies doing to address this issue?

Over the past several decades, considerable effort has been made to reduce alcohol sales to underage persons but less attention had been given to the issue of sales to obviously intoxicated patrons. Alcohol sales to intoxicated patrons are illegal and may lead to public health issues such as traffic crashes and violence. Studies have found a high likelihood of sales to obviously intoxicated patrons, but little is known about efforts among law enforcement agencies to reduce these sales. We conducted a survey of state alcohol beverage control (ABC) and local law enforcement agencies across the U.S. to assess their actions for addressing alcohol sales to intoxicated patrons at licensed alcohol establishments. We randomly sampled 1,632 local agencies (response rate 66.3%; n=1082) and surveyed a census of ABCs (n=56). We found that 23% of local agencies and 65% of ABCs reported conducting enforcement efforts to address sales to obviously intoxicated patrons in the past year. Among these, less than half used specific strategies on at least a monthly basis to address these sales. Sales to obviously intoxicated patrons were reported to be somewhat or very common by 57% of local agencies and 87% of ABCs. Local agencies in cities of >250K (vs. <250K) were more likely to report that sales to obviously intoxicated patrons were common and to conduct enforcement efforts to address these sales. We conclude that increased efforts can be made to reduce alcohol sales to obviously intoxicated patrons, especially among local law enforcement agencies in smaller communities.