WESTERLY — With the holidays approaching, a group of volunteers Monday pasted stickers on cartons of beer, wine coolers and other items stocked by the town’s four liquor stores.

The alarm-red stickers, however, aren’t price tags or markdowns.

They’re warnings.

“Think buying alcohol for someone under 21 is not a big deal? Think again,” say the four-inch-wide stickers, which list state penalties for providing alcohol to minors, starting with a $1,000 fine for a first offense, and jail time and stiffer fines for subsequent offenses.

“The stickers are designed to make people think,” said Mary Lou Serra, coordinator of the Westerly Substance Abuse Task Force. The group recently spent $1,500 for 5,000 stickers, which will appear on boxes and packages at Ocean State Liquors, E-Z Midway Liquors, The Wine Store and Dick’s World of Wine.

“The holidays are upon us. It’s a great time of the year,” said Serra. “But it’s also a frightening time since statistics show that the holidays provide a perfect excuse for minors to drink.” Often, she added, “adults provide the kids with the alcohol. We want that practice to stop.”

Serra said she got the idea at a conference in Florida, then discovered other Rhode Island communities have used similar stickers.

The money for Project Sticker Shock comes from a $145,000-a-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The three-year grant ends this year.

The strategy is the latest by the 20-year-old task force, dedicated to reducing teen drinking and drug use. In the 1990s, the group asked town officials to require alcohol servers to undergo training to spot fake IDs. The group has also paid to broadcast its anti-abuse message in newspapers, on radio shows and on billboards.

The police and the town’s liquor store owners support the effort, Serra said.

“All of us have the same goal in mind this week, and that is to keep alcohol out of the hands of minors,” said Police Chief Edward A. Mello.

“We want to be proactive,” added Serra. “Why wait until there’s a tragedy? Then, everybody wants to help. There are a lot of parties out there, and parents and adults allow them.”

pdavis@projo.com