Does anyone one know where to find that are not $400 or more

It is not illegal to own a wine chiller that does not meet CEC or Energy Star standards, but manufacturers and retailers cannot offer them for sale to consumers in California. If you are looking to order a wine chiller online, contact the seller and find out whether they will ship to California. (Just did a quick search and found that eBay says it will not ship the TWR282 to California). FWIW, I think the new US DOE Energy Star standards that take effect next year are something like 30% stricter than the current (2016) CEC standards. AFAIK, the current Koldfront models will not meet those new standards.

What does the manufacturer say about clearances? That should be your guide.

The IT person in me says this is a security problem, so you need to first identify your threat model. In a best case scenario, you can trust your kids and you teach them to treat alcohol with the appropriate respect; but you also avoid any taboo around it. This probably involves going ahead with a good example (i.e. drink responsibly and don't get drunk) and also letting them taste from your drinks when you have some. If you generally think you can trust them, but you are not 100% certain, then maybe all you need is an alarm system that tells you when it was tripped. Sticking a magnetic sensor onto the door and hooking it up to some sort of alarm system would achieve this goal. There are plenty of different ways of doing this. A quick search finds: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B085HTMGYV combined with https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07TQLKQLJ. I have not used this product before, but I think it could be set up to send you a text message whenever somebody opens the fridge door. Or maybe, you actually want to lock the fridge, because an alarm isn't good enough. In that case, the easiest option would be buying a panel-ready fridge and asking your contractor to attach a lock to the panel. A lockable door hasp latch would be the easiest option. But I am sure a good locksmith could construct a prettier solution. Finally, all of this assumes that your kids are at least somewhat trustworthy. If that isn't the case, things get much more difficult. All of the options that I quoted can be defeated: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm9K6rby98W8JigLoZOh6FQ When I was a teenager, I wasn't tempted by my parents' booze; but I absolutely would consider any of these security products as a worthy challenge.