Variation in Alcohol Policy Enforcement Across Urban and Nonurban Communities.

The goal of this study was to assess whether different types of communities (ie, urban, suburban, small town, and rural) vary in the alcohol enforcement activities they conduct. We conducted a cross-sectional study using data from a national survey of local law enforcement agencies. The survey assessed enforcement of a range of alcohol policies at 1,082 law enforcement agencies. U.S. Census data were used to categorize agencies based on community type. Agencies in urban areas conducted more enforcement activities than agencies in other community types. Urban agencies were more likely than rural agencies to conduct underage compliance checks (prevalence ratio [PR]: 0.42; CI: 0.34-0.53), saturation patrols (PR: 0.80; CI: 0.67-0.95), sobriety checkpoints (PR: 0.68; CI: 0.53-0.86), and enforcement aimed at illegal sales to intoxicated patrons (PR: 0.59; CI: 0.42-0.81). Urban agencies were also more likely than small town agencies to do compliance checks (PR: 0.66; CI: 0.56-0.79) and sobriety checkpoints (PR: 0.75; CI: 0.61-0.91), and they were more likely than suburban agencies to do compliance checks (PR: 0.67; CI: 0.57-0.78) and enforcement actions around the sale of alcohol to intoxicated patrons (PR: 0.64; CI: 0.45-0.90), provision of alcohol to minors (PR: 0.77; CI: 0.65-0.92), and consumption by minors (PR: 0.90; CI: 0.82-0.99). Enforcement of alcohol laws differs by community type. Future research is needed to identify mechanisms to increase enforcement by agencies in different types of communities.

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