Oregon Partnership Tells Claire’s Stores: Don’t Sell Flasks To Young Customers!

(Portland, Oregon) Oregon Partnership has asked the CEO of Claire’s Stores, Inc. to stop the sale of alcohol flasks in its Icing by Claire’s stores.

The multi-colored flasks are predominantly displayed at the checkout counters at Icing by Claire’s stores, which according to the company website, focus on a customer base that includes teenage girls.

“Offering these products to teens is shocking,” Oregon Partnership Communications Director, Pete Schulberg, wrote in a letter to Eugene S. Kahn at Claire’s company headquarters in Pembroke Pines, Florida. “And it’s not worthy of your company’s record in the area of social responsibility.”

Icing by Claire’s is a costume jewelry and accessory store targeting young women.

As Oregon Partnership’s letter points out, underage drinking is a growing problem in our country.  Massive amounts of advertising and promotion by beer companies and other alcohol manufacturers make it that much harder to reverse the trend and change the culture of underage drinking.

Recent research in Oregon shows that more teenage girls are outdrinking boys, resulting in a myriad of other problems including sexual assault, unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

After complaints by Oregon Partnership, Macy’s and Bloomingdales decided to take beer t-shirts off their shelves, which received substantial positive attention in the national media.  Other national chains have discontinued the sale of drinking games and other similar products.

Oregon Partnership and other anti-drug coalitions are making real inroads in informing parents, educators, and the business community about how alcohol use among adolescents is even more dangerous to their developing brains than previously believed.