Split the tab for underage drinking

We completely understand that it is not the responsibility of local business owners to act as babysitters for UCF students.

It is their job, though, along with serving customers of legal age the beverages they seek, to make sure customers under the age of 21 do not drink alcohol on their property.

The fact that the Florida Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco caught more than 20 underage drinkers at Knight Library and TD's Sports Bar & Grill on St. Patrick's Day shows that these locations have plenty of room for improvement in preventing this from happening.

We're aware that there are plenty of UCF students who are of legal age to drink. Potential customers are everywhere around this area, student and not.

However, there is a large population of students well below the legal drinking age.

This is a debate that we at the Future have gone through in years past. Should we, usually in our Variety section, feature bars and talk about their drink specials when we know that some of our own readers are not legally able to purchase said drinks?

We've come to the decision, however, that it is ultimately up to the individual student to stay within the law and not attempt to purchase illegal beverages.

With that said, we also recognize that the individual students who broke the law and had alcohol when they were not of the legal age to do so, are just as responsible as the bar that might have sold them the booze.

The greater portion of the responsibility, though, is on the bar itself.

They are the ones who have a business to worry about. They are the ones with income, a livelihood to worry about.

Underage drinkers are going to get busted, appear in court, pay their fines and move on with their lives.

If a local bar has its liquor license pulled, it could be the death sentence to the entire business.

Of course there is the argument that these drinkers could have secured alcohol from elsewhere and that the bartenders did not necessarily serve them.

Members of the staff from these establishments should be looking for underage people drinking alcohol regardless of where or who the beverage came from.

For obvious reasons, the bartenders and staff have to attend training sessions hosted by ABT officials on how to prevent underage drinking. But it does not seem that these sessions are doing enough to eliminate the issue of underage drinking.

We would like to think that this latest incident would help deter underage drinking at these establishments, but there is no reason to believe this. One of the bars is dealing with ABT officials regarding past incidents of underage drinking. If past events did not change the accepted behavior at these bars, we are not confident the latest one will either.

We are happy that the ABT was there to catch these incidents and issue written arrest notices.

It reminds underage drinkers that even if they obtain alcohol they are still not permitted to drink it under state laws.

Even if you disagree with the drinking age being set at 21 years old, you still have to respect the law, or pay the consequences.

And to the bars in the UCF area, remember that getting shut down is going to hurt.