ENID, OK -- As the 2006 legislative session gets underway in Oklahoma, state legislators are starting to think about “new or better laws” to combat illegal underage drinking, reports the Enid News and Eagle.

The newspaper writes that some legislators have tried to get measures passed in previous sessions that would provide stiffer penalties for minors who illegally consume licensed beverages and adults who buy the products for them. However, their attempts at passing new laws have been unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, the newspaper writes that the most recent sting in Enid revealed that the majority of the town’s convenience stores “are abiding by the law and refusing to sell or furnish alcohol products” to those under the legal drinking age.
 
The newspaper suggests that the best way to discourage store clerks from selling alcohol to minors would be to “toughen penalties on the stores themselves,” adding that repeat violations “should have sanctions on store owners, not their clerks."

In Fernandina Beach, Florida, teens who are members of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) “Youth in Action” program recently entered a handful of local convenience stores armed with stickers.

The stickers, reports First Coast News, shaped like red stop signs, are part of the program’s efforts to discourage illegal underage drinking. The teens slapped the stickers on alcohol products inside cooler doors, which warn minors of the potential dangers of illegal consumption.

“We don't want convenience stores selling to underage youth and this is a friendly reminder that you must be 21,” teen Jim Morrison told the newspaper.

Morrison and his peers recently went into “sticker shock” at a local Smile Gas Station. Store owner Dawn Cunningham and store clerk Linda Box-Wright told the newspaper that they endorse the MADD sticker program to help “prevent sales to minors.”

”It's against the law and this means our jobs if we serve or sell alcohol to somebody who's underage,” Box-Wright told the newspaper.