ID wristbands come to Winterfest

If you fancy the idea of wandering around the Sundance Winter Festival with a beer in hand, you may be interested to take part in a new wristband program that's being introduced this year.

Partly intended to make sure alcohol is not served to under 21s and partly to streamline the process for businesses selling alcoholic drinks, the program is courtesy of Crook County Prevention and the modest price tag for each wristband will also help to offset the costs of hosting the popular snow event.

It's a 30-second process, explains Katie Allen, Community Prevention Specialist. Simply hand over your identification, which is scanned using a portable machine that instantly shows your age and confirms you are eligible to purchase alcohol.

You will then be given a blue wristband, which shows that you have been carded and are allowed to carry an open container around the festival grounds.

"The Winterfest committee wants to make things easier for the businesses who are selling the alcohol and it also helps overall with managing, and with ensuring that people who are not 21 are not drinking," she says.

Two locations will be available to pick up your wristband; one will be inside City Hall, while the other will be across the street between the pharmacy and gym.

"They are charging $5 for a wristband, and that goes towards supporting Winterfest," Allen says. "It's really to help offset the cost."

If you do not plan to drink alcohol at the event, or if you only intend to do so inside one of the bars or restaurants, you do not need to wear a wristband.

However, anyone who would like to drink while outside on the street should head to one of the two locations to have their ID checked.

"It's about being able to just wander outside and have a drink," she says. The locations will be available throughout the event.

The kit has been purchased through the county's prevention grant over the course of a few years and can be loaned out as needed.

"This is one of the things we have available in our prevention sphere. Any organization could actually borrow the whole kit," she says.

"There's plenty of signs, there's lots of wristbands, there's actually books that have licenses from all states so you can do a comparison, we have two of the ID checkers and UV flashlights to check licenses. There's even tape to tape off an area like a beer garden."

The technology has been used before, at an outdoor concert sponsored by the Crook County Museum District at which beer was on sale at the concession stand.

"We set up a table with the signage about ID being required and we carded everybody. If you were 80 years old, we still carded you," she says.

"Everything we do is science-based or evidence-based. This has been a proven technique that will help curb and manage underage drinking at, say, a community event."

Among the statistics supporting the program, she says, is one showing that 57% of custodial arrests in Wyoming involve alcohol.

The program has been in use for some time around Wyoming and has been successful, Allen says. In the future, she would like to see it become a requirement for granting a liquor license for a local event.