Omaha, Nebraska, Douglas County requires a legal aged individual
purchasing keg beer from a retail establishment to sign a registration
form.  I believe the registration removes legal responsibility from
the owner of the establishment to the purchaser.  The problem with the
registration slip/card, which is attached to the keg, is that it is
easily removed and discarded once outside the retail establishment. 
Police have no way of tracking ownership of the keg should an accident
or death occur as a result of serving from the keg at a party or the
like.  Are there municipalities, counties or states in other parts of
the country that require registration and what are they doing to
assure trace ability?  If not, suggestions?

Doesn't the keg have a number embossed in the metal?  Is the number
recorded on the form?  Doesn't the vendor have a copy of the form?  If
so, the keg can be traced.

Are you sure that the purpose of the form is as you say?  It seems
that that vendor could easily demonstrate that he was not the person
serviing the beer, especially if he had no bar or catering service.

I was recently at public hearing where two or three police officers
concurred with each other in that it seems that many kegs do not have
identifiable numbers and that manufactures seemed to have stopped
numbering the kegs.  Without any keg identification either through
stamped/embossed numbers or attached registration cards, "...tracing
ownership of a keg becomes an almost impossible task."

As far as your comment/question: "Are you sure that the purpose of the
form is as you say?  It seems that that vendor could easily
demonstrate that he was not the person serviing the beer, especially
if he had no bar or catering service." I think you are missing the
point.  If there is a keg party out in the middle of a cornfield where
the keg is unattended and fully accessible by all who happen to be
under aged individuals and one of them leaves the party fully
intoxicated and is killed in auto accident?who is responsible for that
individual?s death? The person who bought the keg and delivered it to
the party?  The retail establishment that sold the keg?  Is there any
proof that they did or did not sale to someone of legal age?

This county requires any retail establishment selling a keg of beer to
have the purchaser to fill out a registration card.  The requirement
is, in my opinion, an exercise of having SOMETHING in place
(regardless of its effectiveness) in which to place
accountability/responsibility and is designed to start with the retail
establishment.

Your response to my questions doesn't answer: "Are there
municipalities, counties or states in other parts of the country that
require registration and what are they doing to assure trace ability? 
If not, suggestions?"

Vern,
Yes, I missed the point, but do now understand.  Thanks.  Maybe others
here will now, too.

I hope so.

Regards, Myoarin

Here we go, from NY and California:
http://www.abc.state.ny.us/announcements/BULLETIN%20NO.%20586.pdf
http://www.abc.ca.gov/FORMS/ABC544.pdf

And here is a long discussion of the subject.  Only the cache file would open:
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:J3pcIvC3-4EJ:www.epi.umn.edu/alcohol/policy/img/SOCIAL_COMBINED_2005.PDF+control+of+beer+keg&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=14

And here is a shorter one, that may be an condensed version of the
above.  It mentions places that have implemented beer registration:
http://legistar.cityofgainesville.org/attachments/2335.pdf

You can find many more sites with a search for:  beer keg registration

Apparently the problem of the keg registration label
's being removed is addressed by having a healthy deposit on the keg 
- $ 75 in NY -  and only returning it when the keg is returned with
the label intact.

No system is perfect, but it would seem that if something unfortunate
happened in an area, the police would be able to find out who bought
and did not return a keg, und the the NY system.

Hope this helps, Myoarin