Self-checkout lanes are a convenient way to purchase groceries -- and an easy way for minors to buy booze. Anti-alcohol groups want to put a stop to that, setting off a skirmish between the supermarket industry and community groups over how alcohol can be sold at the grocery store.
The California Senate is set to begin debating a bill today that would force supermarkets to route all alcohol sales through live cashiers, who could ensure that buyers are sober and of legal drinking age.
The legislation breezed through the Assembly this year over the objections of some large grocery chains. It has support from organizations fighting alcoholism and teen drinking, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Marin Institute as well as labor-allied community groups such as the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.
California already forbids cigarettes, spray paint and some over-the-counter medications to be sold in self-service checkouts to make it tougher for minors to obtain them. The bill, AB 1060, would add beer, wine and spirits to that list, according to its author, Assemblyman Hector De La Torre (D-South Gate).
"It is a big discrepancy," De La Torre said of the alcohol loophole. Why "not have the same restrictions?"
Still, the bill goes against the grain of previous alcohol regulation in California, which has among the most consumer-friendly laws in the nation. If approved, the legislation would also would have an outsize effect on Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores. That chain, which uses self-service checkout exclusively, would have to adjust its model or give up lucrative alcohol sales.
Self-service checkout systems are growing in popularity. Shoppers run the items across a scanner and place them in a bag on an electronic scale. The machine checks to see whether the weight of the product matches what was scanned to keep customers honest. Consumers like the convenience, and supermarkets save on labor.
When a shopper buys alcohol, the devices are programmed to freeze the transaction until a clerk confirms the age of the buyer. But these safeguards failed or were ignored by supermarket staff almost 20% of the time, according to a April test of Southern California food stores by UCLA's Community Economic Development Clinic and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.
