The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses led to a decision to allow alcohol licensees to provide home delivery and curbside pick-up for both on-premises (e.g., restaurants) and off-premises (e.g., grocery stores) outlets, with certain limitations and requirements. The legislature extended these privileges to July 2023. The LCB has been conducting compliance checks for these allowances, but doing so is somewhat difficult and costly, and therefore the number of checks is much smaller than the other types of compliance checks. The rate of compliance has been between 50 and 70 percent in the past 5 months.

To better understand the potential for those under 21 years of age to obtain alcohol through home delivery and curbside pick-up, the Washington Healthy Youth Coalition (WHY) has been working to implement a survey tool now being made available on a national level but adapted to each state’s needs. With support from the Alcohol Action Network who designed the Alcohol Compliance Assessment Process (CAP) Tool, contributions from the WHY Coalition, and the work of the ad-hoc Workgroup, the online form is now ready for dissemination.

The goal of this project is to document what happens when an adult of legal drinking age buys alcohol for home delivery or curbside pick-up in Washington. The results will help us determine to what extent these services are checking identification and following other compliance protocols. At a minimum, we expect this information to help guide our efforts as a Coalition as well as to inform policy efforts statewide. Please note, we do not want to encourage or promote the consumption of alcohol and participation is completely voluntary. We also ask that the Alcohol CAP Tool link is not posted to social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. You may share directly with co-workers, friends, or family, but remember this is intended only for adults of legal drinking age who are purchasing alcohol for home delivery and/or curbside pickup. Please do not have anyone underage purchase alcohol as to do so would put them in legal jeopardy. The Alcohol CAP Tool will be available through July 5th.

Please consider sharing within your various networks; however, prior to doing so, please review the first page of the Alcohol CAP Tool for some important information.