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Teens Soon May Be Able To Serve, Ring Up Your Booze in Chicago

 Teens would be allowed to sell and serve booze at restaurants and grocery stores under a measure endorsed Wednesday by a City Council committee touted by aldermen as an effort to reduce youth unemployment.
Teens would be allowed to sell and serve booze at restaurants and grocery stores under a measure endorsed Wednesday by a City Council committee touted by aldermen as an effort to reduce youth unemployment.
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CITY HALL — Teens would be allowed to sell and serve booze at restaurants and grocery stores under a measure endorsed Wednesday by a City Council committee touted by two aldermen as an effort to reduce youth unemployment.

The ordinance, authored by Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) and Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th), would not apply to bars or stadiums, only places where alcohol is served along with food.

Nearly 42 percent of Chicagoans younger than 21 are unemployed, and the Council has an obligation to do everything in its power to help those teens and young adults find a job, Sawyer said.

"This is a logical and incremental step," Tunney said.

Cashiers and servers would not be allowed to open or pour alcoholic drinks under the new law, but they would be allowed to sell and serve the booze, if the new law is approved as expected March 29 by the full City Council.

The measure was unanimously endorsed by the City Council Committee on License and Consumer Protection Wednesday. It has 33 co-sponsors, Tunney said.

That means grocery store cashiers would no longer have to ask an adult employee to scan and sell booze, inconveniencing shoppers, Sawyer said.

"That doesn't make sense," Sawyer said.

The teens and young adults would have to complete state training — as all other employees do — before being permitted to sell booze.