(L-R) P.E.M. Dir. Becky Burks, Sen. Christensen, Sen. Wightman

Participants in a Project Extra Mile Meeting on Tuesday in Lexington discussed current legislation aimed at curbing underage drinking. State Senator John Wightman of Lexington says he shares the concerns of the Dawson county coalition on LB 261, a bill introduced by Senator Kent Rogert of Tekamah that would allow retailers to scan and capture age and other information from a driver's license and deny future use of that license to purchase alcohol. Senator Wightman says when you start doing something that could be an invasion of people's privacy and you're doing that to 95% who are buying alcohol legally, swiping their driver's license through, with information being kept by the State of Nebraska, that concerns him.

State Senator Mark Christensen of Imperial told the coalition that he supports LB 261. Senator Christensen says if every purchase required swiping a driver's license, that would eliminate any sale to an underage individual because the card would reveal who is a minor. Furthermore, Christensen says the cash register would lock and it couldn't be used until a supervisor unlocked it. He also suggested that with a second bar code on the packaging or container, law enforcement could trace an alcohol sale back to the driver's license used in purchasing alcohol for a minor or minors.

Project Extra Mile's Executive Director Diane Riibe has said that her organization has concerns with the bill because it would make retail compliance checks nearly impossible. Those involve cooperating minors who try to purchase alcohol from retailers. Once a driver's license of a minor is swiped and the person is determined to be a minor, that driver's license would be flagged for future purchase attempts, even if it was a minor cooperating with police.