Restricting Alcohol : Recent laws now require more restric­tions to be put in place for pur­chas­ing kegs. More infor­ma­tion and guide­lines are given to con­sumers at time of pur­chase. Photo By: Kate Dupon | Photo Editor

The law spec­i­fies that all kegs sold must be tagged with an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion stat­ing who pur­chased the alco­hol and the tags must remain on the kegs in order to return them. Removing a tag from a keg will result in for­fei­ture of the deposit and a poten­tial mis­de­meanor charge that could bring up to 93 days in jail and/or a $500 fine.

Retailers are required to fill out a keg reg­is­tra­tion and dec­la­ra­tion receipt each time they sell a keg, list­ing the type of ID used to con­firm a buyer’s age, the ID num­ber and the date of birth of the pur­chaser. Purchasers are required to sign the receipt and agree not to dam­age the keg or alter the tag. Retailers also must keep records of all kegs sold for at least 30 days after a keg is returned.

Some keg providers were not aware of the new law and found out about the Nov. 1 dead­line through cus­tomers and other sources. Grunst Brothers Liquor Store owner Bob Grunst said that he has not received a noti­fi­ca­tion from the state about the new law.

“The state did not send me any­thing directly, sim­ply because it would cost them too much money,” Grunst said.

For retail­ers and brew­eries that sell kegs, the law means more paper­work and the poten­tially unpleas­ant task of scrub­bing stick­ers off of kegs when they are returned.

For con­sumers it means more paper­work and more account­abil­ity, but it also means if they have a keg they haven’t returned by Nov. 1, they may be out of luck get­ting their $30 deposit back.

FSU com­puter pro­gram junior Ryan Busscher said he can see this law pos­si­bly stop­ping peo­ple who are think­ing about sup­ply­ing alco­hol to minors, but said the law is not the most effec­tive mea­sure for lim­it­ing under­age drinking.

More teens die from alco­hol over­dose or drunk dri­ving crashes than from all other causes com­bined.  Keg reg­is­tra­tion is using this as a way to reduce under­age access to cheap alco­hol. The law was put in place in order to make it eas­ier to trace peo­ple who pro­vide beer to minors at keg par­ties. Without tags it was dif­fi­cult for law enforce­ment to hold keg pur­chasers account­able when minors are caught drink­ing. However, the ques­tion is if this will really make any difference.

“Keg sales com­pared to 25 years ago went down about 50 per­cent,” Grunst said. “There are not so many abuses these days; how­ever, abuses aren’t going to go down because of this law.”

Keg reg­is­tra­tion makes retail­ers a part of the solu­tion to under­age drinking. It also assists them in prov­ing that their keg sales were done legally. Grunst said that his keg sales are not very high dur­ing the school year; how­ever, by imple­ment­ing this new law it may affect the sales of other local party/liquor store­own­ers and their business.

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