Babylon group targets underage drinking

Three high school crusaders and an adult chaperone walked into Ferraro's Wine and Liquor Store on Main Street in the village of Babylon Wednesday.

"We're here with a pledge," Anthony Torres, 16, said to the man at the counter. "If you sign, you would ID people who look around 30 years or younger and you would join a community of businesses and parents against underage drinking."

The Babylon Community Coalition calls the yearly campaign "Not on Your Life." Felice Niland, a social worker whose son attends Babylon schools, formed the group in 2009 to combat underage drinking in the village after seeing survey results suggesting troubling rates of alcohol use by Long Island youth. A similar survey from the 2010-11 school year indicates more than 70 percent of Suffolk high school juniors and seniors have tried alcohol, and more than 30 percent have engaged in binge drinking in the previous two weeks.

After a talk Wednesday by a member of the Suffolk County Prevention Resource Center, the coalition's delegations visited 26 Babylon stores and got pledges from 90 percent, a coalition representative said.

Niland said her group's campaign aims for an "environmental" change of attitude about underage drinking. Anthony said teenage drinking was "pretty widespread" in his circle of acquaintances. The employee behind the counter at Ferrar's, who did not want to give his name, said he and the owner always ask for identification from young people -- sometimes two forms if the first looks suspicious -- but that some try to get around that by asking adult customers to buy alcohol for them.

And, he said, he'd have to wait for the owner to sign the pledge. Torres gave him a card and some literature.