Cops targeting adult buyers
When the Colstrip Police Department conducts alcohol sales compliance checks, they not only test sales by clerks and bartenders, but also seek to stop adults who knowingly buy alcohol for minors.
Sergeant Cory Hert told the Montana Tavern Times Jan. 12 the "shoulder tap" stings are now regularly being incorporated into rounds of compliance checks there. A Dec. 30-31 check nabbed three adults who allegedly knowingly bought alcohol at the request of an 18-year-old decoy, according to Hert.
 |
Officer Cory Hert
|
Hert's compliance counterparts in the Flathead area, a task force headed by Montana Highway Patrol Sergeant Steve Lavin, conducted similar stings around the first of the year that busted three adults who allegedly purchased alcohol for minors in "shoulder tap" stings. Levin said 23 people were approached to make illegal buys.
Hert said in Colstrip the decoy will typically operate outside a convenience store and will approach strangers to purchase alcohol. The decoy will pointedly tell a potential "bootlegger" that they are 18 and cannot get served inside.
He said in the most recent check, about 16 to 18 attempts were made by the decoy to get an adult to buy alcohol and three of the adults approached did so, which is typical of the department's experience in two earlier similar checks.
What officer Hert said he found particularly disconcerting is that the adult buyers were all total strangers, which offers an insight – "a real wake-up call" – into how easy it is for a minor to obtain alcohol from adults, potentially even easier when a minor approaches adults he or she is acquainted with. The minor decoy used in Colstrip is not from the immediate area.
Hert said penalties for an adult providing alcohol to a minor are substantial – up to a $500 fine and six months in jail. In the most recent Colstrip cases, the three convicted were sentenced to 10 days in jail – which was not suspended and was actually served – along with fines in excess of $300 and six months to one year of probation. Further, the crimes are publicized in the local newspaper so a social stigma is added to the jail time and fines.
In the Kalispell area, Sergeant Lavin said the shoulder taps conducted there were a first and a learning experience. While five of the 23 adults who were asked agreed to buy alcohol for the minor decoy, ultimately three were cited for unlawful transaction with a minor as the other two were problematic, Levin said. None of those cases had been adjudicated through justice court at press time.
Levin agreed publicizing the crimes and the perpetrators names is likely to be a strong deterrent. In fact, he said they conducted shoulder tap stings on two consecutive nights, and by the second night, word of the operation had spread. At least one adult who was approached to buy said he was aware of the stings and refused, Levin said.
"Word got around pretty fast," he said, "These probably won't have to be done very often, maybe one night every couple of months. And we expect a lower failure rate next time, which is our goal. The adults who buy for youth need scrutiny too; this is a huge avenue of access."
Levin affirmed that law enforcement grant requirements now call for a multi-faceted approach to underage access deterrence including education, "cops in shops" where police officers may pose as clerks or customers in order to catch youth attempting to buy, walk-throughs, shoulder taps, party patrols and traditional seller compliance stings.
Levin said the combination of deterrence tactics should add up to more effectiveness and higher compliance rates all around.
Montana Tavern Association Government Affairs Counsel Mark Staples said he found it "refreshing" that law enforcement has apparently now begun working diligently to get at the chief source of illicit alcohol for minors: adults who furnish it.
"All authoritative studies, including one from the American Medical Association, have concluded that adult friends and family – and apparently strangers, too! – are the primary source of youth access to alcohol," Staples said. "Yet we've seen see hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants – almost all the funding – being spent on enforcement for a relatively minor source: on- and off-premise retail businesses.
"We congratulate the police for their reasoned and effective efforts to curtail youth access," he said.