DYERSBURG, Tenn. -- Tony Barham, regional business manager for Best-Wade Petroleum Inc., a Ripley, Tenn.-based chain of convenience stores, is heading up the first meeting tonight of a committee of concerned business owners, parents and other parties to explore the problem of underage beer sales. The company’s Short Stop Food Store in Dyersburg, Tenn., was among 11 of 20 stores caught selling beer to minors in a sting operation earlier in 2002, he told CSP Daily News, and the store lost its license for 90 days.

Barham went to the board meeting the night the town pulled his license. He said, "If you feel like the sting operations have stopped the problem [of underage sales], explain to me why you busted just as many people today as you did five or 10 years ago. It's not working. Let’s do something different."

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PHOENIX -- Arizona has started telling its citizens which retailers, by store name and location, have passed or failed undercover sting inspections on tobacco sales to minors, according to an Associated Press report.

Newspaper ads identifying stores have been published in three cities so far, says the report. The goal is to have merchants treat this seriously, a sate Department of Health Services spokesperson said.