This past April, a Green Street Pantry employee was charged with selling alcohol to a minor who died of hypothermia the same night with acute alcohol intoxication as a contributing factor.
The University of Illinois Police Department investigation found that a Campustown liquor store employee did not ID 18-year-old Akul Dhawan when he purchased vodka the night of Jan. 19. Green Street Pantry was fined and cited and only lost its liquor license for seven days.
Fines issued by the city under the Champaign Code of Ordinances against businesses for selling alcohol to an underage person are just a fraction of fines given to underage people for purchase or possession of alcohol.
From Jan. 1, 2018 to mid-April this year, Champaign gave out 56 ordinance violation fines totaling $19,600 to city businesses that sold alcohol to someone underage. In the same period, there were 723 fines totaling an estimated $253,050 given to underage people for purchase or possession of alcohol.
The names of the businesses fined under the ordinance were not released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by CU-CitizenAccess.
Beginning in 2020, the number of fines given to underage people, who are often students, each year significantly decreased — there were 33 in 2022 and only two last year — due to Champaign police shifting its patrol responsibilities away from Campustown.
“Many of the citations that Champaign Police would have written in that area would be on UIPD reports and citations. This would explain a decline in these citations for CPD since October 1, 2022,” Champaign Police Sergeant Justin Prosser said in an email.
But the state of Illinois also gets involved in local enforcement of liquor laws and fines bars and liquor stores that fail to pass compliance checks.
On Sept. 14, 2023, the Illinois Liquor Control Commission (ILCC) fined the bar KAMS $1,000 for serving alcohol to underage drinkers.
KAMS, located on Green Street in Campustown, boasts that it is “Home of the Drinking Illini,” and, like other Campustown bars, it allows 19- and 20-year-olds in its doors, but is not supposed to serve them alcohol.
The state commission fined KAMS $500 in 2019 for the same violation.
“The City of Champaign believes that as a college town, allowing 19- and 20-year-olds to socialize and enjoy the entertainment provided at regulated, licensed establishments is ultimately a safer experience for young adults than socializing at a house party or other unregulated gathering that could encourage underage drinking,” Champaign Interim Deputy Liquor Commissioner Jeff Hamilton said in an email.
The fines come from periodic visits by police to the bars and other sellers of alcohol, often known as bar raids. The state fined Campustown businesses nearly $15,000 since 2018, commission records show.
The commission works closely with law enforcement agencies across the state to conduct underage compliance checks, also known as bar raids. Data on fines resulting from these raids was obtained by CU-CitizenAccess via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Bars and liquor stores in Champaign failed around one quarter of the state’s underage compliance checks in 2023.
“Repeat violations in a short period of time can result in increasing fines and other enforcement actions from the city, including temporary closures or in the most serious circumstances, liquor license revocation,” Hamilton said.
Since 2018, the Illinois Liquor Control Commission has fined 25 businesses within Campustown, about half of the 51 total citations in Champaign and Urbana. The 25 fines issued to Campustown businesses total $14,500.
Familiar bars and pantries such as KAMS, Legends, Brothers Bar & Grill, Illini Pantry and Green Street Pantry have all been cited.
