KAPLAN - Five businesses are in violation of the law after their employees were recently caught selling alcohol to minors.

Now, one of those businesses is speaking out, saying there’s no excuse for what the employees did. Economart has been in business in Kaplan for more than 37 years.

James Kane, managing supervisor for the company, says having two of the stores hit with liquor violations is two too many. Kane says the company does everything it can to take steps to prevent violations from happening.

“We take extra efforts with our employees to emphasize the importance of checking ID’s” said Kane.

First, employees must attend a state sponsored bar card class, as required by state law. This is where they are first educated as to the liquor laws of our state with a special emphasis on not selling to minors.

Then, all employees are again individually trained and are required to sign off that they have read the company’s store policy handbook, stating that they must ID anyone who appears to be under the age of 30 -- a rule he’s even posted at the stores.

Every month the company sends out a “Check ID Reminder” that all employees must again read and sign verifying that they know the rules for checking ID’s on beer, liquor, cigarettes, and/or lottery sales.

“In fact when such a sale is tendered, the register screen shows the message that they must check the ID. The screen allows the entry for the birth date; the cashier does not have to calculate anything to figure the age; she just has to enter the birthdate” he added.

“This is what we do for a living. If we don’t do it very well, we won’t be making a living for long.”

So when he found out his store was cited for selling alcohol to minors, he was stunned.

“There’s no excuse for anyone not to ID,” said Kane.

Penalties for violations include fines of $200 - $5,000 and suspension or even revocation of a liquor license.

Kane says in the tough economy those consequences are no slap on the wrist, but our company is ready to comply and move forward.

“We’ll try to make amends the best we can,” said Kane. “We pay our fines, retrain everybody again and hope that the employees will do what is right and required by law.”