RRForum 6th National Conference

April 22- 23, 2008. Sheraton Station Square Hotel Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The 6th RRForum was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 22-23, 2008 at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board served as host and sponsor for the national meeting.

As in prior national meetings, the 2008 RRForum addressed responsible retailing at each of these distinct levels of store, community, state and national policy. As always, the 1st plenary session was: What really happens at the point-of-sales? This year we pre-sent data from the Retailer Work Group, which examined compliance data from national chains and analyzed the behaviors associated with failed inspections (any failure may be unacceptable; but the different reasons associated with failing to check IDs—inattention; multi-tasking; a misplaced sense of accommodating a customer; utter indifference to store policy—call for very different training and supervisory responses). Additionally, RRForum accumulated data in 4 states on the frequency of over-service and the types of behavior associated with serving intoxicated customers.

The keynote speech during the Tuesday evening dinner was given by OC Madden, Vice President of Brown Jug Alaska. Brown Jug, with 18 outlets in Alaska, has pioneered a remarkable program that allows retailers to seek civil penalties against underage customers who solicit adults to purchase alcohol for them as well as against the adults who furnish alcohol to minors.

Registrants were asked to participate in one of two work groups on the morning of April 23. Last year’s RRF national meeting in Santa Fe focused upon the problem of fake IDs; and following the suggestions made at that meeting, one break-out session at the 2008 national meeting launched an examination of policies to discourage the use of fake IDs by underage customers and a process by which these policies can be tested and then implemented at the level of state and community. A second break-out session similarly launched an effort to adapt and expand the Report on Best Practices for Responsible Retailing, developed as a federal guidance document for CSAP, to the unique challenges and needs of on-premise alcohol beverage establishments.